Flashback Friday: B Pool's cold open

Memorial Day, 1930: The (water) show must go on

Chilly weather delayed the seasonal open of Radburn’s B Pool on Memorial Day weekend. But in 1930, the pool’s first year, it opened despite even lower temperatures. That was because the show had to go on.

B Pool was scheduled to debut about a year after the arrival of Radburn’s first residents. The City Housing Corp., eager to publicize its new community’s lavish amenities, had invited the press to witness residents enjoy the water on the pool’s first day.

There was just one problem, according to Kathy Veile, one of Radburn’s first settlers: It was the coldest Memorial Day in memory. And in those days, the pool (whose water now is 83 degrees) was unheated.

In a tape recording of a 1969 interview long filed away at the Radburn Association’s offices in the Grange building, Veile sounds as if she’s still shivering at the thought of that Decoration Day (as the holiday was then called).

But, she said, the show had to go on. Radburn Manager John O. Walker implored Radburn’s residents to come and swim for the news media.

“Johnny Walker had the movie cameras there,’’ Veile recalled. In those early days, “People came from all over the world to see ‘The Town for the Motor Age.’ This was a big publicity deal for Radburn.’’

In 1930 in-ground concrete swimming pools were found mostly at country clubs, on private estates or in Hollywood. And, despite Radburn’s boast to be “Safe for Children,’’ for many home buyers the new community’s big selling point was not its separation of pedestrians and vehicles, but its pools.

“You don’t need to go away for summer vacation,’’ real estate sales agents told their prospects.

But the pools (R Pool opened in 1931) were also a source of tension between Radburn and the rest of Fair Lawn, whose residents could not swim in Radburn and would not have the borough’s Memorial Pool for another two decades.

Into the pool

On B Pool’s chilly first day, about 25 of Radburn’s 700 residents dutifully showed up in bathing suits – but refused to get in the water. It was just too cold. (According to historical records, the high that day in New York City was only 61; in Radburn it was probably several degrees cooler.)

Kids, of course, could have been counted on to jump in, no matter how cold the water. But in its first year Radburn had relatively few children of swimming age.

Finally, to appease Walker, Kathy Veile dove in and did a quick lap, followed by her husband, Fred. Then they got the hell out of the water.

“We were both blue,’’ she recalled. “It’s good they weren’t color cameras.’’