A food delivery guy was standing at the entrance of an apartment complex in San Francisco’s Cole Valley neighborhood as I happened to be walking by. When the guy was buzzed in I did a double take as the now open door reveled a clean, large rectangle-shaped swimming pool.
Here’s a satellite shot of the pool in Cole Valley.
Despite the beautiful weather portrayed in the above image, San Francisco rarely – if ever – gets warm enough to swim outside in a pool. Sure, the occasional two or three-day heat spells come in the fall months, but they’re never long enough to warm up pool water to a comfortable temp.
[zoomed in view of Cole Valley outdoor swimming pool]
The average high temperature in San Francisco in September, the city’s warmest month of the year, is only 70 degrees (F). Even if the pool water is heated to 80 degrees (F) you’re still putting yourself under a good deal of discomfort to get a few laps in.
[via The Weather Channel]
Also, did you notice the average low temperatures for the warmest months of the year? If you live in San Francisco it’s the reason you never leave your apartment without a sweatshirt, even on the hottest days. It’s also the reason tourists are forced to buy those stylish “SF” fleeces that get worn on their one and only vacation to San Francisco.
The outdoor swimming pool in Cole Valley isn’t the only open air pool in the city. Arguably the city’s warmest neighborhood, the Mission, has an outdoor pool in the currently under renovation Mission Playground. The pool at Mission Playground is expected to re-open in August 2012.
What makes the Cole Valley outdoor pool so rare, despite what we’ve already discussed, is the fact that it’s residential. The Mission Playground pool is owned by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department.
Could you imagine coming across a Craigslist apartment listing that included “outdoor pool” as a feature of the apartment? Also, isn’t California in a drought? Shouldn’t we drain this sucker ala Dogtown and Z-Boys and make it into a skatepark until the “warm” months come?
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