Once a key place during the summer for families in neighborhoods like Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and East Hollywood, the old pool has sat empty since 2020. But now, L.A. is finally moving forward with a long‑talked‑about plan to bring water back to the historic Griffith Park Pool.
City officials recently approved a roughly $40 million budget to tear out the old facility and build a new, smaller pool, a training pool/splash pad, and updates to the Spanish‑style pool house and changing areas, with construction expected to start in summer 2026 and finish by early 2029, as reported by the L.A. Times.
The current tank will be demolished and replaced with a new complex, including a year-round competition pool.
L.A.’s legendary public swimming pool
The Griffith Park Pool opened in 1927. It was called the Municipal Plunge and was the biggest public pool in Los Angeles and a very important recreation spot for early 20th‑century Angelenos.
The pool’s basin measured about 225 feet by 48 feet, and at its peak could hold around 562 swimmers at once. At the pool, people would not only swim, but also learn to canoe, join in water parades, and participate in summer programs.
Over time, its foundation deteriorated, and by the pandemic in 2020, the city shut it down. A planned reopening in 2022 fell apart when engineers found foundation cracks that made water retention impossible.