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Summer unofficially kicks off Memorial Day weekend with the opening of New York City’s public beaches, with hundreds of lifeguards deployed to 14 miles of shoreline.
For new lifeguards, the work to don the orange uniforms began months ago on pool decks across the city. And the process for working at beaches (and at public outdoor pools when those open at the end of June) has also changed since the lifeguards and lifeguard supervisors got their first new contract in four decades last year, just before the start of beach season.
The talks were contentious and required an arbitrator. But the changes will ideally stem a drastic and dangerous lifeguard shortage, and change a process and culture that many people said worsened the problem.
“I know the struggle that it’s been for 40 years,” outgoing Parks Department Commissioner Susan Donoghue told THE CITY in an interview, a week before she’s set to step down. “I also knew that we could change it.”
On an early Sunday last December, dozens of mostly teenagers lined up on the tile at the pool inside Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn, taking turns jumping into their lanes for a swim for the first qualifying swim of the season.
Would-be lifeguards swim in training at Fort Hamilton High School, April 27, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Having these tests, and the subsequent weeks-long training course, at different pools around the city only began last year.
Previously, everything was offered at one or two pools in Manhattan, which the city’s Department of Investigation found in a 2021 report was one of many ways the union maintained a fiefdom over the program.
Lifeguard trainees swim laps at a class in late April held for the first time at Far Rockaway High School. The 16-week course is required for new lifeguards looking to work at beaches or pools run by the New York City Parks Department. Credit: Katie Honan
This year, the Parks Department added training courses at Far Rockaway High School in Queens, Curtis High School on Staten Island, and James Madison High School in Brooklyn, in addition to Fort Hamilton. They plan to add a pool in The Bronx for the course next year, a spokesman said.
Since she was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in early 2022, Donoghue and her staff have tried to wrest some control of the lifeguard program away from the union and back into the Parks Department. A lot could only be done through the contract, so throughout the union negotiations, the agency looked at what they could control, like adding a retention bonus for guards who stayed all summer and a pay bump, she said.
And she wanted to ensure the guards felt more like Parks Department employees as opposed to seasonal union staffers. More lifeguards were featured in recruiting ads and marketing material, and First Deputy Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa organized meet-and-greets at city beaches.
“They should be featured, the work they do is incredible, they’re brave public servants and we want to be highlighting the work they do,” Donoghue said.
Back at the pool, some struggled to complete the required 50 yards in under 50 seconds — another recent change, with more seconds added to the time — to get to the next step on their journey.
But others, like Alexia Triolo, 16, of Bay Ridge, whizzed through the test. She first learned to swim as a baby, when her aunt’s friend taught her mom how to teach her to hold her breath underwater, she said.
Alexia Triolo, right, trains at Fort Hamilton High School to become a city lifeguard, April 27, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
She then told her mom to drop Triolo in the pool so she would learn to swim back up.
“My mom couldn’t do it, so she did,” Triolo told THE CITY. She later excelled in official Mommy and Me swim classes, where the instructors told her mom to say her daughter was older because her skills already exceeded the other kids.
She first joined a swimming team at 7, and she now competes for Xaverian High School and with the club team Freedom Aquatics.
Since February, Triolo has spent Sunday mornings at Fort Hamilton, completing the required city lifeguard training she called “tough but also very exciting and fun.”
Boosting the Ranks
During a recent class, future lifeguards swam from end to end on a red rescue board, quickly popping up to sit and make a turn.
The students took turns pretending to be a drowning victim as two classmates propped them up on the board to paddle them to safety. Some of the swimmers flipped over on their boards. Others struggled to get up.
“You’ll get better at it,” an instructor told them.
Lifeguard trainees practice with bright red rescue boards, April 27, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
So far, Parks Department officials are cautiously optimistic that their changes boosted recruitment. This year, 515 people who passed the initial swim test registered for lifeguard training, compared to 500 last year.
But there are always drop-offs, as would-be guards find new jobs or lose interest. Parks has 374 people enrolled in the training course and are awaiting passing the final test. Last year, 270 new lifeguards passed the final test.
A spokesperson for the Parks Department said they believe changes to training and the test will yield a higher passing percentage than before.
The agency also certifies lifeguards through the summer, so a final tally on guards was not available and doesn’t include returning lifeguards, who don’t have to take a full training course.
Beach Dreams
Maddie Theis also passed her qualifying swim the same day as Triolo at Fort Hamilton.
The 16-year-old from Broad Channel, Queens, goes to The Scholars Academy in Rockaway Park, and first learned to swim when she was 4 years old.
She’s spent the last 15 Monday evenings at the pool at Far Rockaway High School.
Lifeguard trainee Maddie Theis prepares to swim laps at Far Rockaway High School, April 28, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Despite being a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean and the city’s longest stretch of beach, the courses were never previously offered there.
For Theis, she’s always liked “the quietness when I’m under the water, but I also enjoy the adrenaline when I’m at a meet competing with other swimmers.”
She wants to pursue a job in the medical field and feels being a lifeguard will help her towards that goal, she said.
During a recent class in late April, students started class by swimming laps in the more than 100-year-old pool at Far Rockaway. Then they practiced carrying a drowning victim without a board, learning first on the pool deck how to delicately grab another classmate’s chin up and out of the water.
“The training is tough,” Theis said. “The instructors are strict and don’t make any excuses.”
Both Triolo and Theis are still taking part in training before taking the final swim test. Some have to take additional training at a pool in Manhattan on Memorial Day, Theis said.
Under the changes from the Parks Department, a timed swim test is not required for shallower “kiddie” pools, but still is for the beach and larger pools. This is another way the agency hopes to boost its lifeguard ranks while keeping pools open.
Theis hopes the long process will be worth it when she passes, she said. “It’s a tough course but I believe it will be worth it,” she said.
Her dream is to work at Rockaway Beach, one of the city’s most dangerous beaches.
Triolo hopes to pass the test and make it to Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn, which is where she first dreamt of being a lifeguard. (The Parks Department does their “best to accommodate location requests,” a spokesperson said.)
“I always looked up to the lifeguards saving lives everyday,” she said, encouraging other young people to try out next year.
“The fact that I can potentially be saving lives is very fulfilling and humbling.”
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