Annette John-Hall | Keeping it cool at Mantua pool
It wasn't a mirage. It was real. It was wet. It was welcoming. The turquoise water coaxed swimmers to jump in - a liquid oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle that is the playground at 39th and Olive.
It wasn't a mirage.
It was real. It was wet. It was welcoming. The turquoise water coaxed swimmers to jump in - a liquid oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle that is the playground at 39th and Olive.
On the hottest day of the year, with temps threatening triple digits, jump in they did, a whole bunch of kids mighty happy that their neighborhood's dry spell is finally over.
After a two-year shutdown, the public pool in Mantua, once a trouble spot, is back in operation. In yesterday's unrelenting heat, it was packed with about 50 youngsters, swimming, splashing, and doing jackhammers under the watchful eyes of two drill-sergeantlike lifeguards and three staff members who pulled no punches to make sure things ran smoothly.
"I ain't gonna argue with no kid," says Anthony Saunders, 39, a PMP (pool maintenance person) whose official job is checking chlorine levels, but who, like every other adult here, does his part to check on the children. "My philosophy is, if you can't follow the rules, you got to go."
Everybody has a stake in the pool's success.
There are the lifeguards, who want to keep their good summer jobs, which pay $12.33 an hour, and the maintenance people, most of whom grew up swimming at 39th and Olive.
A safe haven
And most of all, the parents, who need a safe haven for the kids to cool off during the summer, a time of year when killings tend to rise. If that's possible. Otherwise, they'd just be heating up a corner "with the drug boys," says Lisa Dukett, 43, who watched her 6-year-old splash around in the shallow end.
It wasn't the usual maintenance that closed down the pool at 39th and Olive, one of the city's 81 public pools. Two years ago, a group of teens attacked a lifeguard after a confrontation. Last year, the city kept the pool closed, partly as a punitive measure.
But the bigger truth was, "We couldn't recruit or get other lifeguards to go over there," says Erica Young, aquatics director for the Philadelphia Recreation Department. "It's not like I could get the police over there to stand watch."
This year, despite some misgivings, PDR commissioner Victor Richard opened 39th and Olive, albeit with abbreviated weekday hours and no swimming on the weekends.
The PDR also has taken pains to place homegrown lifeguards at their home pools.
"I know the whole 'hood. It's a good neighborhood," says lifeguard Jamill Jenkins, 19, of Mantua, an area that once had a horrible reputation as a drug zone. Increased police presence and community activism have helped the neighborhood come back.
Like the pool, the neighborhood is open again.
Jenkins heard about the kids attacking the lifeguard. He knew of the kids, and they aren't bad, he says.
It's all about respect. The lifeguard taking the time to explain why he's correcting behavior and the kids respecting him enough to listen.
"I know how it was with me when I used to swim here," Jenkins says.
He figures he could squash any beef faster and better than someone who wasn't familiar with the neighborhood.
Lead lifeguard Benjamin Wright says it's important for the same lifeguards to be present all summer.
"You look for them [the kids] to learn from each other. You allow them to let you know who the troublemakers are."
It would be a shame if the pool shuts down over some stupid stuff, Jenkins says. After all, it's about everybody having fun.
About the kids
Tiffanie Still, 33, works the overnight shift as a certified nursing assistant at Pennsylvania Hospital. She's off at 7 a.m., but it was already 2 p.m. and she hadn't gone to sleep yet.
"I've done the laundry, cleaned my apartment, and now I'm down here because it really is about the children," the single mother of four says.
Ever since her brother, Osbourne Still, and her cousin, Jamie Jackson, were gunned down in Wynnefield in 1998, Tiffanie trusts no one.
Not that she has any control over what might happen.
"Sometimes I wonder how I can protect them," she says. "They could get shot coming home from school, and nobody would know nothing."
But for today, just for a few hours, the joyous laughter coming from the kids in the pool provides her temporary serenity.
"After they get out, I'm going to take them home, get them a hoagie and let them watch a movie. . . . They sleep so much better after they've been in the pool."