We know D.C. Get our free newsletter to stay in the know.
At first, the idea sounds disgusting.
No, you think, I have zero desire to swim with old rusty nails.
But done-up as an exclusive, behind-closed-doors, all-the-cools-kids-are-swimming-in-dumpsters-and-you-don’t-even-know-where-they-are! way, the idea has its appeal.
It’s happening in New York, somewhere deep in Brooklyn we’re told—-although the New York Times won’t reveal where. Given the economic downturn and stagnation in the construction industry, there are a lot of dumpsters just lying around. Why not turn ’em into pools?
A real estate developer is behind the project:
The idea, said David Belt, a real estate developer and the president of Macro-Sea, the company behind the pools, was not to create an exclusive party destination but to experiment with underused space and materials, repurposing them with urban renewal in mind…
From there the project proceeded quickly and cheaply, in guerrilla fashion: the Dumpsters were donated by a construction company that suddenly had a surplus (thanks, economic downturn), the designers who helped render the plans were recruited through Craigslist, and members of the small crew that erected it in a week were unpaid.
“They just wanted to be able to use it,” Mr. Belt said.
And, for the record, the pools are very thoroughly cleaned out, and are described as “newish.”