Ask people who have grown up in Fishtown about their memories of summertime, and a common response might be the sight of an open fire hydrant spewing water into the street and the smiling faces of their young friends running through the spray.

It's a summertime memory of a bygone era but, thanks to Philadelphia's budget crunch, residents might see the sight returning to neighborhood streets.

That's because when Mayor Michael Nutter announced the results of the "Splash and Summer Fund" earlier this month, Fishtown's community pool wasn't on the list.

The fund, announced in February, was created to help keep city pools open throughout this summer after budget cuts threatened to keep all but 10 of the more than 70 neighborhood pools dry.

In order to open 46 of the city's 76 public, outdoor pools this summer, the city will use $429,141 in donations collected mostly from corporate sponsors.

That amount is a portion of the total $621,141 that was collected to support the pools.

This includes contributions totaling $597,500 made by a number of local organizations and corporate entities along with an additional $23,641 donated by public citizens through the United Way.

The remaining $192,000 was donated with the provision that the funds be spread across a three-year period.

The city plans to use the remaining funds to keep pools open in the future.

Still, some neighborhoods have been left to wonder how they ended up without a local watering hole to call their own.

In the Fishtown and Kensington 19125 ZIP code, not one pool will be open this summer.

"This seems like an invitation to open up fire plugs in the summertime," said A.J. Thomson, a longtime community organizer in Fishtown. "It makes no sense. It seems like we get the short end of the stick."

When budget cuts were announced in November of last year, the city said they would have to shutter all but about 10 pools this summer.

Since then, Nutter established the "Splash and Summer Fund" in order to help provide donated funding to keep as many pools open as possible.

But, some residents in Fishtown, like Thomson, are concerned that, while 46 city pools will open, popular local pools will not.

Nearby pools like Cohocksink at Cedar and Cambria, the Samuel Rec Center pool at Gaul and Tioga streets and the pool at the East Poplar Rec center at 8th and Poplar streets, will be saved. Others, like the Fishtown pool at Montgomery Avenue and Moyer Street, the Cione pool at Aramingo and Lehigh, and the Northern Liberties pool at 321 Fairmount Ave. will not.

"I'm happy that some of the pools that were supposed to be closed will be open, but, did they do it fairly?" questioned Andrew Christman.

Christman, a Fishtown resident who said he took his 3-year-old son to the Fishtown pool on a regular basis last year, thinks the city is targeting Fishtown and surrounding communities for cuts. He felt same way when City Hall said they would close the neighborhood library on Montgomery Avenue last November.

"This smacks of what they did last year," he said. "(With these selected pools) there is nothing within walking distance for residents of Fishtown and Port Richmond."

Thomson also referenced last year's cuts in his comments.

He wanted to know how the city selected the pools to save, seemingly leaving Fishtown out of the loop after the city had already removed vital services like the recent closure of the Fire Department's Engine 6 and Belgrade and Huntingdon.

"How could we be losing city services? They took our engine; they targeted our library," he said. "It seems like, if you really care about this city, you're always fighting to save something."

Maura Kennedy, a spokeswoman for Nutter's office, said that with the selected pools, the mayor had hoped to open as many as possible, knowing full well that any decision they made would not satisfy the everyone.

"Obviously, we couldn't keep all of the pools open," she said. "And we realized we couldn't make everyone happy. We tried to (open pools) equally throughout the city."

But, what both Thomson and Christman wanted made clear was how the city selected which pools to spare, if locals donated to the Splash and Summer Fund, how could they be ensured that their favorite pool would be open this year?

Kennedy said that the selection of pools was made in conjunction with the city's Recreation Department. She said residents weren't able to decide which pool they wanted the funding to go to because the city wanted pools to be opened throughout the city, not just in certain neighborhoods.

"We did it this way because we didn't want to only concentrate on neighborhoods that could afford them," she said. "The list has been chosen and it's unfortunate, we wish we could have all the pools stay open."

Susan Slawson, recreation commissioner, said a number of factors were taken into consideration when pools were chosen.

"No way would we haphazardly choose a pool," she said.

According to Slawson, pools were selected by looking at the pool's location, average usage from 2008, size, condition, and accessibility of each pool.

Also, she said that her office worked closely with members of City Council in choosing which pools to open.

She said that the pools will open thanks to the "Splash and Summer Fund" along with "a little over a million" in additional funding that the mayor was able to squeeze out of the city's budget.

Other variables, like funds that might be needed in order to prepare a pool for the summer, were also taken into consideration, she said.

"If a pool would cost us something like $250,000 to open," said Slawson, "we weren't going to open that pool."

Residents also mentioned concerns that fewer facilities open would mean more people at each pool, which could cause trouble with people coming into new neighborhoods to swim.

"These pools are going to be so crowded," worried Thomson.

Slawson said that her department has been talking with the police. She said there will be officers checking out pools in order to halt any concerns and some pools will even have an officer assigned to monitor them.

"Police will be checking on pools and some pools will have officers assigned to them," she promised. "I think this can be a smooth operation."

Also, in order to pick up the slack where some pools might be closed, Slawson said there will be 95 water sprinklers set up at rec centers throughout the city so that kids looking for a little relief from the summer sun will be able to run through a sprinkler instead of making one out of a fire hydrant.

"That's an additional 43 sprinklers than we had last year," she said.

Overall, Thomson said that even if he's not entirely happy with the pools selected, he's happy that the city was able to open more than half the pools after initially planning to close almost all of them.

"You know, I have to hand it to the city, they did open 46 pools," he said. "I guess the kids who want one will be able to find one and maybe the others will pick up a baseball and a glove."

Reporter Hayden Mitman can be reached at 215-354-3124 or hmitman@phillynews.com