Ever since he took office after eight years of Mayor Anthony Williams’ tenure, the question has burned in our minds: Will D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty continue Williams’ tradition by opening the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation’s public swimming pools with a cannonball dive? He’s been asked the question a number of times already, but always with a different answer. First Fenty said maybe his twin sons, Matthew and Andrew, would do the honors. Then just yesterday, City Desk brought word that Fenty had challenged NBC4 reporter Tom Sherwood to perform the opening dive (Sherwood responded by saying he’d do it if someone donated $5,000 to a charity of his choosing).
The first five of D.C.’s public swimming pools, in Anacostia, Georgetown, Francis, Kenilworth Park and Oxon Run, opened for weekend hours only, from noon to 6 p.m., this past Saturday. The rest of the pools will open in a staggered schedule for weekend hours over the course of the next several weeks, until all pools will finally open for normal, weekday operating hours on June 25. You can find the complete pools locations and schedule here. Note that this Saturday pools in Langdon Park, East Potomac Park, Randall and Upshur will be opening for weekend hours. All D.C. residents can swim for free at any of DPR’s pools.
But what about that cannonball? A spokesperson for Mayor Fenty, Dena Iverson, tells us the mayor still hasn’t decided for sure what kind of event he’ll host on June 25 for the offical opening of the pools, let alone whether he, or anyone else, will actually perform the cannonball. Fenty has so far proved himself to be the last person who feels he needs to hang on to old traditions, so we expect he may want to forego performing any kind of dive himself, especially considering it was an invention of his predecessor. But the annual cannonball was always something to look forward to every summer, so we’re going to start our begging now: Mayor Fenty, please, let’s make sure somebody takes an awesome dive of some sort this year.
Who would you like to see dive into a D.C. public pool on June 25, and what kind of dive should they perform?
Photo from dc.gov
