After years of fundraising and planning, a reconstructed Ridgewood Pool opened to the public on Sunday, May 28th 2023.
Below is the press release that was distributed to various media outlets (also available as a PDF here).
View Our Local News Coverage:
WKOW TV Opening Day Preview – May 27th, 2023
WISC TV / Channel 3000 Opening Day – May 28, 2023
MADISON’S FIRST AND OLDEST OUTDOOR COMMUNITY POOL
REOPENS SUNDAY WITH A SPLASH!
After 7 years of planning, and with donations from nearly a thousand people from 40 states, the District of Columbia and even Europe, Ridgewood Pool, Madison’s first and oldest outdoor community pool, has been rebuilt and is reopening!
Ridgewood’s multi-generation legacy started in 1958 when visionary community members went door to door collecting money to buy 6 city lots and build a pool. For more than 60 years, thousands of children over multiple generations learned to swim at Ridgewood, 500 families – the max that capacity would allow – joined every summer, and year after year the swim and dive teams would have nearly 300 members helping establish a swim culture that has put Madison in the top 5 of the Nation’s Best Swim Cities according to USA Swimming.’
Ridgewood Pool lasted 64 years – a quarter century longer than outdoor pools are expected to last in this climate. But finally, the decades of patching and repairing couldn’t hold the pool together any longer. Ridgewood closed last fall after one final hurrah hosting nearly 2000 swimmers from 13 pools for Madison’s 60th annual All-City Swim Meet.
Knowing that day would be coming, in 2016 the next generation of visionary community members formed the Ed Nebbins Foundation, dedicated to supporting the life-saving benefits of swimming in partnership with Ridgewood and providing learn-to-swim opportunities to people who otherwise might not have the chance. ENF’s first mission was to raise the funds to rebuild Ridgewood. It took 7 years but last September, one day after the original Ridgewood closed for good, ground was broken for a new Ridgewood for the next 60 years!
Ridgewood Pool opens for the summer on Sunday May 28 at 11 a.m. with a soldout membership and people who have been part of Ridgewood for the past 6 decades on hand ready to celebrate the legacy that will continue for generations to come.