Hearst Playground story in Current

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about remodeling the Wilson Aquatic Center to allow for a huge open-air deck with roll-up window walls? It would be criminal to change the 100-year stretch of serenity enjoyed by the Hearst neighborhood.

It would be criminal to avoid programming a public park to be used by the public for how the public wants to use it, particularly at the behst of a handful of nearby neighbors who are selfishly fighting it.

It ain't YOUR park. It belongs to all of us. You just happen to live close to it. That doesn't give you more rights, more say or more sway over what happens there.

Congratulations! You’ve persuaded me — to oppose the pool at Hearst. I WAS fine with it at first. But who are you to preach about what community opinion is? 2500 messages later it’s clear that people have different opinions, not just on this forum but at ANC meetings and expressed in the Northwest Current etc. Must you always delegitimize and denigrate the concerns of close-by neighbors or soccer moms or tennis players? Their opinions also count. You come across as the selfish one, like “I want MY pool and I want it NOW! “

So build the pool in Ward 3, just anywhere but Hearst Park. That way, there’s less chance that I’ll hear you at the pool. If you’re this nasty on-line, then it would probably be no picnic (or pool party) in person.

+1. Stop vilifying Heart Park neighbors and other park users who have serious reservations about the tradeoffs necessary to build a suboptimal facility at a suboptimal location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about remodeling the Wilson Aquatic Center to allow for a huge open-air deck with roll-up window walls? It would be criminal to change the 100-year stretch of serenity enjoyed by the Hearst neighborhood.

The facts are not on your side. The Beauvoir pool memberships sold out in 3 hours and cost over $1000. There are lines to use the Volta pool. There is incredible demand for a public outdoor pool in upper NW.

Remodeling Wilson is ridiculous. How about the Hearst pool is indoor/outdoor? There's a huge demand for pool space year-round, a situation that will get worse with Lab closing its pool. Build the Hearst pool with a bubble like is happening elsewhere: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ajc.com/news/national/ymca-wanted-use-outdoor-pool-winter-added-giant-bubble-dome/AzSEu5b76WfKsffEwvYlHI/amp.html#ampshare=https://www.ajc.com/news/national/ymca-wanted-use-outdoor-pool-winter-added-giant-bubble-dome/AzSEu5b76WfKsffEwvYlHI/

This is the silliest idea yet. Build, maintain, heat and secure a smallish indoor public pool at Hearst, which is less than one mile (a 5 min drive) from Wilson Aquatic Center pool, which DPR doesn't exactly do a great job of maintaining at scale.

The suggestion was for Hearst to be indoor/outdoor, which means outdoor in the summer, which Wilson is not, and indoor in the winter. What is silly about that? It certainly addresses the opponents' views that the pool shouldn't be built because it would only be used in summer. If you think people won't use an indoor pool because it's small, you don't have a clue about the demand for pool space in this area.

But the opponents concern that the pool will only be used in the summer is an absolutely absurd argument. Schools are in session for only about 60% of the days in a year - should they not have outdoor play space because the school won't use it every day? And by that metric we should remove all of the tennis courts which are barely used at all - why have anything if it isn't used all the time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about remodeling the Wilson Aquatic Center to allow for a huge open-air deck with roll-up window walls? It would be criminal to change the 100-year stretch of serenity enjoyed by the Hearst neighborhood.

It would be criminal to avoid programming a public park to be used by the public for how the public wants to use it, particularly at the behst of a handful of nearby neighbors who are selfishly fighting it.

It ain't YOUR park. It belongs to all of us. You just happen to live close to it. That doesn't give you more rights, more say or more sway over what happens there.

Congratulations! You’ve persuaded me — to oppose the pool at Hearst. I WAS fine with it at first. But who are you to preach about what community opinion is? 2500 messages later it’s clear that people have different opinions, not just on this forum but at ANC meetings and expressed in the Northwest Current etc. Must you always delegitimize and denigrate the concerns of close-by neighbors or soccer moms or tennis players? Their opinions also count. You come across as the selfish one, like “I want MY pool and I want it NOW! “

So build the pool in Ward 3, just anywhere but Hearst Park. That way, there’s less chance that I’ll hear you at the pool. If you’re this nasty on-line, then it would probably be no picnic (or pool party) in person.

+1. Stop vilifying Heart Park neighbors and other park users who have serious reservations about the tradeoffs necessary to build a suboptimal facility at a suboptimal location.

This is such an absurd thread because proponents have to keep coming back to refute ridiculous arguments.

The only trade-off here is losing a lightly used tennis court and some additional parking demand on the adjacent lightly used streets. That is it.

This is neither a suboptimal facility nor a suboptimal location.

The "reservations" of the immediate neighbors are neither sound not reasonable nor rational.

I will continue to vilify them for being selfish. And for making things up. And repeating the things they make up over and over.

[Anonymous]

+169 (for the running number of pages in this thread)

Literally the same fraudulent arguments from the neighbors over and over. Like Trump, they believe if they keep repeating the lie, at some point, others will believe them too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about remodeling the Wilson Aquatic Center to allow for a huge open-air deck with roll-up window walls? It would be criminal to change the 100-year stretch of serenity enjoyed by the Hearst neighborhood.

The facts are not on your side. The Beauvoir pool memberships sold out in 3 hours and cost over $1000. There are lines to use the Volta pool. There is incredible demand for a public outdoor pool in upper NW.

Remodeling Wilson is ridiculous. How about the Hearst pool is indoor/outdoor? There's a huge demand for pool space year-round, a situation that will get worse with Lab closing its pool. Build the Hearst pool with a bubble like is happening elsewhere: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ajc.com/news/national/ymca-wanted-use-outdoor-pool-winter-added-giant-bubble-dome/AzSEu5b76WfKsffEwvYlHI/amp.html#ampshare=https://www.ajc.com/news/national/ymca-wanted-use-outdoor-pool-winter-added-giant-bubble-dome/AzSEu5b76WfKsffEwvYlHI/

So the Hearst pool proponents are the rational ones, when their only criticism of remodeling the Wilson pool for open-air usage is that it is "ridiculous" without further explanation. I am not a Hearst neighbor, but it would clearly harm the surrounding area (up to several blocks away) to build an attractive nuisance in what has always been a tranquil urban oasis except during soccer use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about remodeling the Wilson Aquatic Center to allow for a huge open-air deck with roll-up window walls? It would be criminal to change the 100-year stretch of serenity enjoyed by the Hearst neighborhood.

The facts are not on your side. The Beauvoir pool memberships sold out in 3 hours and cost over $1000. There are lines to use the Volta pool. There is incredible demand for a public outdoor pool in upper NW.

Remodeling Wilson is ridiculous. How about the Hearst pool is indoor/outdoor? There's a huge demand for pool space year-round, a situation that will get worse with Lab closing its pool. Build the Hearst pool with a bubble like is happening elsewhere: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ajc.com/news/national/ymca-wanted-use-outdoor-pool-winter-added-giant-bubble-dome/AzSEu5b76WfKsffEwvYlHI/amp.html#ampshare=https://www.ajc.com/news/national/ymca-wanted-use-outdoor-pool-winter-added-giant-bubble-dome/AzSEu5b76WfKsffEwvYlHI/

So the Hearst pool proponents are the rational ones, when their only criticism of remodeling the Wilson pool for open-air usage is that it is "ridiculous" without further explanation. I am not a Hearst neighbor, but it would clearly harm the surrounding area (up to several blocks away) to build an attractive nuisance in what has always been a tranquil urban oasis except during soccer use.

The area is not urban at all. It is the opposite of urban. It is a low density neighborhood surrounded by a wealth of open space, trails, and protected national parks. You sound ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about remodeling the Wilson Aquatic Center to allow for a huge open-air deck with roll-up window walls? It would be criminal to change the 100-year stretch of serenity enjoyed by the Hearst neighborhood.

The facts are not on your side. The Beauvoir pool memberships sold out in 3 hours and cost over $1000. There are lines to use the Volta pool. There is incredible demand for a public outdoor pool in upper NW.

Remodeling Wilson is ridiculous. How about the Hearst pool is indoor/outdoor? There's a huge demand for pool space year-round, a situation that will get worse with Lab closing its pool. Build the Hearst pool with a bubble like is happening elsewhere: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ajc.com/news/national/ymca-wanted-use-outdoor-pool-winter-added-giant-bubble-dome/AzSEu5b76WfKsffEwvYlHI/amp.html#ampshare=https://www.ajc.com/news/national/ymca-wanted-use-outdoor-pool-winter-added-giant-bubble-dome/AzSEu5b76WfKsffEwvYlHI/

So the Hearst pool proponents are the rational ones, when their only criticism of remodeling the Wilson pool for open-air usage is that it is "ridiculous" without further explanation. I am not a Hearst neighbor, but it would clearly harm the surrounding area (up to several blocks away) to build an attractive nuisance in what has always been a tranquil urban oasis except during soccer use.

The area is not urban at all. It is the opposite of urban. It is a low density neighborhood surrounded by a wealth of open space, trails, and protected national parks. You sound ridiculous.

Just repeating the "ridiculous" again...this Wilson remodel idea must be a scarily viable threat to the Hearst pool brigade.

[Anonymous]

OMG who is pushing the stupid Wilson idea? LOL. Where would that even go? How relaxing to lay out in a bathing suit wedged in between major commuter roads. Ha!

[Anonymous]

Not even a matter of laying out. It would be an indoor pool with open windows.

Stupid is large on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Hearst pool mom is becoming insufferable!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hearst pool mom is becoming insufferable!

Who is Hearst Pool Mom?

[Anonymous]

I was at Volta Park in Georgetown yesterday for almost two hours for DS little league practice.

And I was trying and trying to get my head around one of the more absurd anti-pool talking points from the neighbors - that the pool will be an ugly bunker like presence in the park.

The pool at Volta is virtually indecipherable visually from the tennis courts it is right next to - it is a level facility surrounded by a chain link fence. The tennis courts and pool at Volta are surrounded by chain link fences of the exact same height and style and if unless you walk over to the edge of the pool and peer through the fence from a distance you can't even tell that there is a pool there.

Oh and the Volta pool is surrounded by trees on three sides, including some large shade trees on the south edge.

[Anonymous]

Did anyone attend the meeting on Thursday? My understanding from speaking with neighbors is that the DGS rep said the pool is definitely happening at Hearst. Just need to fine tune the details at this point. Is that accurate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone attend the meeting on Thursday? My understanding from speaking with neighbors is that the DGS rep said the pool is definitely happening at Hearst. Just need to fine tune the details at this point. Is that accurate?

I wasn't there, but I hope this is accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone attend the meeting on Thursday? My understanding from speaking with neighbors is that the DGS rep said the pool is definitely happening at Hearst. Just need to fine tune the details at this point. Is that accurate?

I wasn't there, but I hope this is accurate.

Except that DGS hasn't carried out the studies that it committed to the area ANCs. That's stupid, because it will end up delaying, if not scuttling, the pool. Mayor Stupid doesn't exactly appoint rocket scientists to head DC agencies.