The Warm Pool filled for the last time Wednesday night, as scores of pool users and supporters gathered to bid the pool adieu.
A mock coffin was carried into the pool, as participants in the water and on the decks held candles and mourned the loss of the Warm Pool. Wednesday, Dec. 14, was the pool's last day open to the general public; a regularly scheduled Berkeley City College class for the handicapped will be held the following day. Then the pool will be mothballed for several months, with demolition scheduled for June.
Rabbi Sara Shendelman played Tibetan bells and read an interfaith series of prayers, invoking the world's great spiritual traditions.
To close the event, longtime Warm Pool swimmer Judi Berzon read a statement from the Berkeley Pools Campaign, of which she is a Steering Committee member:
Welcome to the Warm Pool funeral.
On the eve of the Warm Pool’s scheduled final closure, we are gathering together with great sadness to mourn many losses:
- We mourn the Warm Pool, which has served the disabled, elderly, parents, infants and many others since the mid 1980s.
- We mourn the weakening of Berkeley’s leadership on disability rights. By allowing the Warm Pool to close without any real effort to provide or plan for a replacement facility, the City of Berkeley is undermining its longtime status as pioneer of the nationwide movement for the rights of the disabled.
- And we mourn for ourselves. The Warm Pool is the only available and affordable form of exercise and therapy for many of us who are disabled. For some, the pool’s loss may be the chronicle of a death foretold. Its disappearance will certainly lead to diminished health for many, and for some it will inevitably lead to premature death. To say this is not melodrama or exaggeration. It is reality.
We urge the City Council to respond quickly to provide Warm Pool alternatives for the short and medium terms. At the same time, we urge the City to begin as soon as possible the planning and research process for a pools bond measure for the November 2012 ballot. Such an initiative would unite the able-bodied and disabled, the young and old, to create a long-lasting legacy in which Berkeley can be justifiably proud.
KPIX Channel 5 filmed the event and filed a report on the 11 pm news, viewable here.
The event also was filmed by Berkeley videographer L A Wood:
The Daily Cal's coverage of the funeral is here, and Berkeleyside's coverage is here.
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