On Monday June 24, Gath Memorial Pool, Newton’s outdoor summer swimming pool, reopened after renovations. The former single-pool facility now includes an eight-lane lap pool with two diving boards, a zero-depth-entry family pool with a water slide and walking lanes, and a nearly complete splash pad with water play features, among other amenities listed on the City of Newton website.
Commissioner of Newton Parks, Recreation and Culture Nicole Banks said that the renovations have been a success and that the grand opening was a fun way to bring the community back together at the pool.
“Today we were really looking forward to welcoming everybody, and for these two brand new pools, it’s been a true community effort,” she said. “We have met with our community and talked about what everybody wants to be a part of this facility, and so today all of those designs and dreams are coming to fruition, and it’s just really exciting to see so many people here.”
Among attendees of the grand opening, Ward 5 City Councilor and State-Representative Candidate Bill Humphrey said that the Gath Pool was an important part of his childhood, and that the City Council invested a lot of effort toward updating it for the new generation of swimmers.
“The Gath Pool project was a really significant project for the City Council over the last few years and something a lot of us pushed for,” he said. “I grew up going to the Gath Pool every summer — I went to summer camp right next door, and then we’d go in the afternoon to the pool. It was definitely long past time to replace it, and we’ve got a really exciting facility that people are going to be enjoying for years to come.”
Along with that, Humphrey said that the City Council pushed for the pool project for utility and equity purposes as well.
“This was a major amenity in the city that the public benefits from every year, but the old pool was in very poor repair and was leaking a huge amount of water out every couple of weeks,” he said. “Getting on top of that was a really significant need, especially for equity between the north and south side of the city.”
The renovations, which began with a groundbreaking in the fall of 2023, were expedited and finished in under a year, which Banks said was a community effort that got the pool ready in no time.
“We really depended on the community to work with us. We depended on all of our staff and City Councilors to help move everything through,” she said. “But we really had a wonderful contractor who helped with all of the construction and building and kept things on track for us. So they worked right through the winter months. And here we are now in our first hot week and we’re enjoying it.”
Humphrey shared a similar sentiment.
“It was a long process, it wasn’t all that quick,” he said. “They were able to fortunately build it quite quickly once it got approved, but we went through a really lengthy process and there was state money that was committed as well to help with the planning of it. And we had Community Preservation Act funds and so forth. And it is a real team effort by everyone in the city government and even some of our state leaders to get two new pools here.”
Among visiting officials such as Humphrey, the Gath Pool hosted Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, hoping to follow through on her indication to “likely take a plunge” in the pool, according to her office last week, after delivering an opening speech to attendees of the opening.
The Mayor delivered.
Bella Ishanyan is a Fig City News intern, Massachusetts High School Journalist of the Year, and off to UMass Amherst in September.
