Big secret in New York building: a swimming pool without a permit on the roof, weighing 60 tons

Photo: Andrej Isakovic / AFP / Getty Images

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A building in Brooklyn (NYC) had a great little secret: a huge portable swimming pool installed on the roof without having required the permits required to add a great weight to a structure, in this case, 60 tons.

Apparently the illegal pool was installed by a tenant and now his landlord owns the building in Williamsburg faces municipal fines. Upon discovery, the sparkling pool of 480 square feet on the roof was drained Tuesday by officials of the Department of Buildings (DOB).

The owner of the three-story brick complex on Flushing Avenue near Thornton Street faces fines of up to $50,000 for two code violations, a DOB representative told the New York Post.

Previous photos captured the 4-foot-deep pool raised on the ceiling, containing approximately 60 tons of water, filled before the occupants’ summer dreams faded.

“New York. We know. It’s hot. We understand. But please don’t try to build a rooftop pool without first getting the permits and hiring professionals to do the job right.” the DOB wryly wrote on Twitter.

FDNY officials alerted the DOB that a a “structural stability inspection” in the building “due to overloading of the roof,” according to city documents, which indicate that on the third floor of the building there is a day care center Yeshiva.

The building appeared to be abandoned and the empty Bestway Power Steel brand pool remained on the roof when the press visited the roof yesterday.

There was a green hose and another small inflatable pool for children on the roof. “It opened about a month ago,” María Hernández, an employee at the bakery next door, said of the school. “They look like children… 4 to 6 years old.”

It was not immediately clear if the owner had installed the pool or if an occupant of the building had decided to confront the heat wave that has NYC in suffocation.

The owner was summoned to appear at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings in December to answer for the maintenance and occupancy violations.

Curiously, in Brooklyn opened last year the highest swimming pool in the western hemisphere, on the roof of youn 68-story building.

In a similar case, during the pandemic summer of 2020, when the vast majority of pools were closed, a Hispanic installed an inflatable on a street in Upper Manhattan, but after several days the police ordered him to remove it for security reasons.

The NYC Department of Emergency Management (OEM) Remember that the combination of “heat and humidity can be dangerous, especially for people with health problems” and have been activated air-conditioned “cooling center” y swimming pools with free access. Four people have died this summer in NYC due to high temperatures.