Rough Crowd 1984, Rough Crowd 2006

Long ago, Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood succeeded in permanently closing a pool facility that had become a dilapidated magnet for a rough crowd. This summer that same pool will be used for rock concerts in order to raise awareness and money for its hopeful reopening:

A run-down public swimming pool that’s been empty for more than 20 years is making a splash again this summer — as a concert venue to help spur interest in its renovation.

The McCarren Pool opened in Greenpoint in 1936 and was closed in 1984 after the community board complained it had become a nuisance.

Over the next two decades, it became a target for graffiti vandals.

Last September, the Parks Department allowed the outdoor pool to reopen as a dance-performance space in an effort to call attention to the venue — and this summer, several concerts produced by Live Nation will hopefully do the same, said Parks Department spokesman Philip Abramson.

There’s no budget money for the pool’s renovation, estimated at more than $40 million, and having popular bands play there is a good way to raise funds, Abramson said.

But Phyllis Yampolsky, head of a group looking to revamp the pool and its grounds into a “multi-use, all-year-round facility,” doesn’t think so.

She said the community does not need giant rock concerts.

See also: McCarren Pool.