For generations of Lansing kids, summer meant getting to take a dip in the Moores Park Pool.
The historic facility has been closed for years, but city leaders hope to reopen it in 2027 after millions of dollars in repairs.
Many people say that work and money are worth it because the pool has been a community anchor for generations.
Throughout most of the last century, you might have noticed a strange sight on summer mornings in Lansing neighborhoods near the Grand River:
Groups of children, in flip flops and toting towels and bathing suits, all heading in the same direction. Former Lansing resident Arnie Allen says the phenomenon was like a "pilgrimage."
"It's kind of neat in many ways, in retrospect, but at the time, heck, you just wanted to cool off, right? "
A trip to the pool often started with a line to get in. Gabrielle Lawrence says sometimes her and her friends would hang out in the park and wait for the line to die down.
"If it was so hot, then we would just wait and, you know, try to pray for people to get out so we could jump in ," she said
For decades, the city required a dime to get a locker key. Visitors would get it back when you left the pool. For some kids, they'd have to save that dime all summer, others used the money to get a treat to end their day.
"There would be somebody out there with one of those ice cream carts, so when we'd get our dime back, turning in our key, we'd all go outside to the ice cream," Christine Beavers joked. "That person was making good money because all the kids did that."
Once you got into the pool, a major milestone would be earning the right to swim in the deep end after making it across the basin's width.
"That's a really wide pool. It's not 25 yards, it's more than that. So, it's a pretty good length of water that you're swimming across in order to get into the deep end," Lawrence said.
For a time, there was also a high dive for the bravest of kids to jump off.
"I jumped off and plugged my nose because I'd get water up my nose if I didn't," John Lynch explained.
Allen, Lawrence, Beavers and Lynch spent summers at the pool across generations from the 1950s to the '90s, but their individual experiences tell a familiar, collective story about what it was like to go to Moores Park throughout the 20th century.
A straw hat sitting upside down
Moores Park is not a typical community pool. Instead of being dug into the ground, the structure was built up to hold the oblong pool basin with lockers and restrooms on the ground level around it.
The design came from Lansing city engineer Wesley Bintz in the 1920s.
"He always described it when he was describing it as a straw hat sitting upside down on a table ," said historian Tegan Baoicchi.
Baoicchi says after building the Moores Park Pool, Bintz began selling his above-ground pool designs around the country, just as community pools were becoming popular city amenities. Practically, his design was often cheaper to build and took up less land.
"I think that he realized that some cities wanted where they didn't have to dig it was more secure, it could be more architecturally interesting," Baoicchi explained.
Around 120 Bintz pools were built throughout the 20th century, but today, only about a dozen remain standing including the one in Moores Park.
"There's not another one like it, the way that it uses the landscape, the ways it has the cobblestone and the other sort of design elements around it," she said.
"It's his home pool."
It’s also been there for countless summer memories that have stuck with Lansing community members over the course of their lives.
Current Lansing resident Micah Williams would come from California every summer in the '80s to visit his grandparents. He's one of many who learned to swim at Moores Park.
"I remember my grandmother sitting in the stands. I remember always wanting to impress her with what I learned ," he said.
In the late '90s and early 2000s, Gabrielle Lawrence became a lifeguard at the pool, calling it the best job she ever had because of the people she got to work with.
"We all swam club together. So, most days, we would go to swim practice in the morning, work together all day and then socialize at night. We were together like every single day, all summer long, and we were all very, very close friends ," she said.
"It was never just about the pool"
Former Lansing resident Skye Patrick says the pool was part of the social safety net for kids like her whose parents worked multiple jobs.
"There were no summer camps that I was aware of and anybody in my neighborhood. So, all we had was that pool and that park ."
She says spending summers at Moores Park and the nearby public library gave her an opportunity to learn about what was beyond her neighborhood.
"Young adults who went to MSU, went to State, would come over to the pool and work," Patrick said. "The kids from the neighborhood got to see this other world. "
Along with earning her own degree from MSU, Patrick now leads the LA County Library system, one of the largest of its kind in the country.
State Senator Sarah Anthony, who represents parts of Lansing, says stories like Patrick’s are part of the reason she pushed in 2023 for $6 million instate funding to kickstart renovations.
"It was never just about the pool, I guess, is the long and short of it. It is about cultural attractions, historic preservation and also building on the momentum, so that neighborhoods like REO Town can really start to thrive. "
When the pool does reopen, Arnie Allen, who grew up in Lansing and now lives in North Carolina, has this advice for kids who might be taking their first trip to Moores Park.
"Unplug and just take in the moment, and really, really realize the impact of what this can have on you throughout your life," he said.
If all goes to plan, Lansing kids will just have to wait one more summer to dive in again.
