Happy 80th Anniversary to Astoria Park's Art Deco Olympic Diving and Swimming Pools & Bathing Pavillions.  Many family members, friends and neighbors all learned how to dive in that extraordinary historic diving pool.  Treasured and used by our community for decades,  With the pools,attendance up past 160,000 this summer we need more swimming facilities not repurpose them. Created By Riber Mises and deigned by by architect Aymar Embury II and landscape architect Gilmore D. Clarke. Part of President FD #Roosevelt's New Deal, The Works Program provided the funds to build #Astoria's Art Deco style #Olympic size Diving and and #Swimming Pools completed in in 1936. Creating jobs and public spaces to lift us out of the Great Depression. #Mayor de Blasio graciously allocated $30 million in funds to Astoria Park recently and funds should be used to restore this diving pool gem.  A historic site which has been used for three Summer Olympic trials, 1936, 1952, and 1964 with athletes coming from all over the USA competing to be chosen for the Olympic games.  All the athletes  selected at these trials in the Astoria diving pool swept the Olympics and went on to win Gold, Silver and Bronze medals, in Berlin, Helsinki,and Tokyo on both the male and female teams.  The Summer Olympic trials connected our modern metropolis to the ancient Olympic games in Greece with Astoria's  pools displaying the art deco design being built in the same period as the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, where average New Yorkers and famous divers and swimmers swam together daily with aquatic sports like water ballet, water polo, synchronized diving and swimming, displaying the water fountain and light shows from the torch shaped dining and seating pavilions lit for the Olympic Flame Ceremonies as well as enjoying theatrical and acrobatic comedic shows performed from the diving platforms and pools and other festive occassions such as swiming a diving competions for decades. The diving pool still thrived throught the 1970s as members of my family, many friends and neighbors who lived in the nearby garden apartments and homes learned to swim and dive in that pool competing in championships for NYC with all 5 boroughs who never would have had the opportunity if they had to pay for private lessons in exclusive swimming pools or travel outside the area to find the necessary facilities. Sadly the lining of the diving pool was torn and allowed to further decay since the early 1980s. Robert Moses envisioned Olympic athletes being created in Astoria's Diving and Swimming Pools in Astoria Park and his vision should be fulfilled for future generations of New Yorkers and all Americans who treasure our history. Many camps visted the pool in the summer to take swimming and diving lessons, the diving  pool could be used for scuba diving certification, college and bourough diving championships, lifeguard training and could even have a floating or retractable stage.  It has been landmarked as a diving pool in 2006 and should be used for its original purpose of diving. "Restore the Olympic Diving pool in Astoria Park" should be be our mantra to preserve Astoria's legacy in the Olympics, our American culture spanning past, present and future generations of Americans achievements, preserving and honoring our communities historic contributions on a world's stage. It will be the crime of the century to corrupt that magnificent pool into an ampitheater only destroying the integrity of the pools site and intended purpose when it could be used for diving and entertainment. With only three public diving pools left in the 5 boroughs.  It should be a wake up call having only won silver and a bronze medals for only men's US diving in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, while the female US diving team didnt even make the finals. Don't allow the destruction of the best diving pool in NYC by a small powerful minority with the overwealming majority of residents and visitors to the pool wanting it to be reopened. Three generations of New Yorker's have been robbed of this glorious facility.  Save and Restore this treasure!