Home > Heritage Themes > Culture
- Multipurpose social spaces
Culture - Multipurpose social spaces
Shared public places such as ocean baths and other
open-air baths add to the
pleasures of life outdoors, help to define the limits of individuality in
the modern city, and to develop civic culture and trust between strangers.
Supporting the continuing existence of such spaces demonstrates an
intellectual interest in the relationship between the body, public space,
health and the city, as well as civic confidence and an interest in forms of
public culture. Like the baths of
classical Rome, the NSW ocean baths function as important social centres, offering a range of formal and
informal activities to pool patrons of various ages and interests.
The ocean baths provide a site and a focus for a range of appealing
activities for a wide range of people, usually at little or no cost in an
informal atmosphere. They are both a place for everyday activities and an
appropriate setting for special events. Of the mosaic of social spaces that
make up each of the ocean baths, the clubhouse has special significance.
Most importantly, the ocean baths of the NSW surfcoast provide safe (usually
free-to-use and unsupervised) spaces for day and night socialising for
people with persistent concerns about beach safety along a coast with many
dangerous beaches and a well-documented history of shark attacks. This
feature sets them apart from other public pools and other outdoor public pool.
The ocean baths are still attractive places to cool off and socialise on hot and
humid summer days and nights, but were even more attractive when air-conditioning
of public buildings, cars and homes was far from common.
The key topics related to ocean baths as multipurpose social spaces are:
Clubhouses were commonly accepted at
ocean baths in Newcastle, on Sydney's Northern Beaches and its Eastern
Suburbs long before they became an accepted part of ocean baths in the
Illawarra. In the Illawarra, dressing-sheds were seen as an essential part
of the pool from the era of the 'would-be Brightons', though by the 1940s
neither of Wollongong's neglected ladies baths had dressing sheds. On
Sydney's Northern
Beaches, where there had been no tradition of gender-segregated baths on the
surf beaches, men often changed from street clothes to swimwear at the surf
clubs, while women changed at the ladies clubhouse at the ocean baths.
Joining a club based at the ocean
baths offered more than just an opportunity to learn to swim and to take
part in club swimming competitions. Even before their clubhouse was built,
activities organised by the Merewether Ladies Amateur Swimming Club included
dancing exercises on the promenade.
This club also co-operated closely with the local surf club, forming a joint
committee to arrange socials, concerts and dances. At Dee Why as at
Merewether, the women's swimming clubs based at the ocean baths offered
year-round recreation such as dances, keep-fit activities, mah-jong and
netball as well as learn-to swim programs for boys and girls. The Bondi Icebergs winter swimming club provided a variety of team
sports as well as clubhouse facilities complete with a liquor licence to its
members.
 Top
By the 1970s, gender-segregated
bathing at NSW ocean baths had ceased to be a popular pastime except at
Coogee, where community pressure had led to retention of women's baths.
Until 1975, Coogee had Giles Baths for men and McIvers Baths for women as
well as two ocean baths that offered mixed bathing. Coogee's men-only Giles Hot Sea
Baths and Swimming Pool offered a range of therapies ranging from the
famous hot sea baths (private cubicles in a bath house), massage and
electricity treatments to hydrotherapy.
Its entry fee covered a locker and the chance to sunbake nude in the
enclosed yard at the back of the bathhouse. Its clientele included jockeys
needing to lose weight, sportsmen, criminals, police, members of the
judiciary and gay men. Being a place where identities were left in the
locker, these baths functioned as a 'genteel beat' place for Sydney's gay
men.
Although competitive swimming and
other watersports remained gender-segregated, Coogee's gender-segregated
pools seemed anomalies in an era when mixed bathing was standard at the
ubiquitous inground, filtered, chlorinated, blue-painted Olympic pools
with their eight lanes clearly marked in black. From 1975, women could attend the
Giles health centre and use its rock pool, its gym and all its other
facilities except the hot sea baths. Yet when storm damage resulted in Giles
Baths being condemned as unsafe and beyond repair, around 90% of the Giles
patrons were men.
In the 1990s, a concerted community
campaign led to McIvers Baths gaining an exemption from the NSW Anti-Discrimination
Act, so it could continue to operate as a pool solely for the use of women
and children. While Catholic nuns had supported gender segregation at McIvers
Baths in the 1940s, by the 1990s Muslim women were more prominent as
supporters of gender-segregated bathing.
As it serves a large catchment area encompassing a culturally diverse
population with many alternative ocean baths and mixed bathing venues, the
continuing operation of McIvers Baths as an ocean baths reserved for use by
women and children can be seen as affirming the right to difference.
Sexuality was always less of an
issue than gender at the ocean baths. While gay men in the Hunter Valley
continue to regard the Newcastle Bogey Hole as a place of special
significance, it appears to have less significance for lesbians. In Sydney,
confronting
allegations that Coogee's McIvers Baths were 'a lesbian lair', Mrs Doris
Hyde, president of the Randwick and Coogee Ladies Amateur Swimming Club said
she had 'never seen anything untoward' there.
Later Mrs Hyde commended the pool's lesbian patrons as 'the nicest girls'
and the 'ones who'll put the fellows out'.
Even so, not all men 'wilfully lingering' on the nearby rocks near the
ladies baths left the vicinity when requested to do so.
Top
In Japanese bathing traditions, the
public baths are seen as places where children learn manners and about how
bodies change with age. In NSW, ocean baths are often seen as a first step
in coming to terms with waves and the intertidal environment. The less
formalised pools like the South Coogee pools or the Bogey Hole at Killcare's
Putty Beach have long been regarded as children's space and many bogey holes
and ring-of-rocks pools have been thought of as safe bathing places for
children. While pools for women and children traditionally excluded all
males over some set age, pools designated for children have never excluded
the child's adult carers.
While long recognised as places for
mothers and infants, school children and fit adults, the ocean baths are now
strongly identified with seniors and retirees, whether year-round swimmers,
competitive swimmers or recreational bathers. This reflects not only the
ageing and health of the Australian population and the availability of early
retirement, but also the fact that the ocean baths are low-cost sociable
spaces, which are far more appealing than the average senior citizens centre, fitness centre or even a suburban shopping mall.
For people of any age and swimming ability, a visit to the ocean
baths is a fine way to spend a day and can offer the agreeable sense of
having a 'second home' and a social circle at the pool.
For people in general, and especially
for people with a disability and people rehabilitating after accidents,
illness or injury, swimming offers both physiological and psychological
benefits. Feeling part of the ocean offers other pleasures that indoor
hydrotherapy pools cannot match. Some people use the ocean baths to relieve
injuries or do exercises other than 'straight swimming'. People with
injuries may walk up and down the pool either on their own, or with assistance
from a friend or relative. Other people use kick boards behind their heads,
paddle with 'pool noodles' or use cut-off flippers that put less strain on a
bad back. Some adults prefer to exercise by walking in the shallower water
of the children's pools.
Since the late 20th century, older swimmers at ocean baths are
often portrayed as exemplars of active ageing. Every ocean pool now seems to
have a set of elderly regular swimmers, who see their ocean baths as a place
that helps to keep them engaged and healthy. People in their eighties and
nineties regularly swim at ocean baths, and in some cases at baths where they
have swum regularly for over fifty years. At the Australian winter swimming
championships, competition from clubs based at ocean baths can be fierce in
the 80+ age group.
At South Curl Curl, the elderly
retired residents habitually sunning themselves at the base of the concourse
wall are affectionately known as 'the walruses'. Collaroy Pool has long had an
informal group of mostly retired swimmers known as the Lizards, who meet at
the southern end of the pool and stand around lizard-like with the sun on their backs.
Having a strong affinity and a long
association with ocean baths that they regard as a 'home', older people have
increasingly become a more significant political force on issues relating to
ocean pools.
Top
Given the popularity of the ocean
baths with elderly, injured and disabled persons, there is understandable
pressure to improve access to these baths for people with a disability.
While pools without disabled access can be seen as discriminatory, the
siting of the ocean baths at North Curl Curl on Sydney's Northern Beaches and Bulgo in the Royal National
Park means access to these pools is awkward enough even for the able-bodied.
Paralympics and other
international sports competition and International Years such as the 1981
International Year of the Disabled have influenced the development,
operation and use of ocean baths, drawing attention to inadvertent
segregation at the ocean baths imposed by access difficulties for disabled
people. While handy disabled parking spaces and wheel-chair facilities
became the mark of an up-to-date formalised ocean baths, efforts to improve pool access
for people with a disability were complicated by factors such as sand build-up around ramps.
Ability Day
1996 saw the opening of an access ramp and new steps at Bilgola Rock Pool
jointly funded by Pittwater Council and the NSW Department of Sport and
Recreation and designed after extensive research and in co-operation with
the council's access committee.
Newcastle City Council's commitment to being the Accessible City was
demonstrated on International World Disability Day in 1999 by
the provision of new ramps to aid access into the pool, kiosk and new shaded
areas at the Newcastle Ocean Baths.
Top
While the Australian Beach Safety
Program recognises ocean baths as offering safer swimming environments than
an unpatrolled surf beach, the rising cost of public liability insurance is
pushing coastal councils to restrict access to ocean baths and introduce
supervision to reduce the risk and hence the cost of the insurance. The NSW
government, which assisted the creation of many of the ocean baths, has done
little to ease the concern relating to public liability or address the
safety or social issues associated with reduced access to ocean baths.
Most NSW ocean baths remain
unsupervised, unfenced spaces, available for use all day and night and free
to use, though maintained by the local council. People who swim at
unsupervised pools want those pools to keep operating 'free of rule and
regulations', charges and supervision. They don't want all the ocean pools
to be all fenced, tidy, sterilised, tiled and 'watched over by a lifesaver'
as 'fences are not the only way to protect things'. At the unsupervised
pools, the pool patrons themselves are both the main constraints on the
behaviour of other pool patrons and also the most immediate source of first
aid or rescue services.
Like many unsupervised ocean baths,
the Huskisson sea pool was a focal point for the local community, a place
where people come together, swim and relax. The Huskisson pool operated
unsupervised until Shoalhaven City Council's risk consultants warned against
continuing to operate the pool without supervision, as people were
'illegally' using the facility after hours.
Council then fenced off the pool and erected signage giving emergency
information to address insurers' demands and reduce the risk of injury
outside supervised hours. While Huskisson is not a classic
ocean baths, the Huskisson example indicates that supervision, particularly
if combined with limited pool hours or entry charges, can make pools less
appealing to their patrons and severely constrain a pool's
long-established role as a social centre available to all at all hours. A
counter-example comes from Sydney's Northern Beaches, where strong
continuing community demand for access to the ocean baths all day over the
swimming season leaves Warringah Shire Council reluctant even to close any
of its unsupervised pools for maintenance and the Council website displays
the times when the pools will be closed for cleaning. What these examples
indicate is that high costs for public liability insurance are likely to
have most impact on smaller, less affluent coastal councils managing a few
ocean baths, that serve a relatively small population.
Commercialisation of the baths
precinct can fund redevelopment of the baths in case where councils withdraw
and where the baths' patrons or some other organisations are able to handle
the substantial funding and risk involved. Faced with concrete cancer in the
Bondi Baths buildings, Waverley Council managed its economic risk by handing
over responsibility for the Bondi Baths to the Bondi Icebergs Club. Thanks
to the perceived value of the Bondi Baths site and to the networking and
entrepreneurial skills of its members, the Bondi Icebergs were able to
organise and fund a massive redevelopment of their pool
complex to host their licensed club, office space for Surf Life Saving
Australia and a restaurant. Income from renting the office and restaurant
will be used to maintain the complex. This approach has also proven popular
in the UK, where volunteers now manage 25% of outdoor public pools, but in most NSW coastal communities, the ocean baths still require local and
State government support.
Top
Beyond their everyday role as
social centres, the ocean baths are considered safe, desirable and
appropriate spaces for informal pool parties and other more formal and
socially significant events including weddings and religious ceremonies. The
Bondi Icebergs complex includes a licensed club and a licensed restaurant.
The deck area and pool at Wylies can be hired for weddings and other
functions, including a Randwick City Council Christmas party. Baptisms have
occurred at Freshwater and Mona Vale on the northern beaches, Norah Head on
the Central Coast and Bulli in the Illawarra.
Since 1960, members of Newcastle's Greek Orthodox community have celebrated
the Feast of the Epiphany at the Bogey Hole with a service including the
traditional blessing of the seas and by having people dive to retrieve a
cross thrown into the pool.
In part as a reaction to and to the
standardised conditions and sense of 'placelessness' at standardised
inground pools, aquatic centres and shopping malls, ocean baths acquired
roles, new supporters and events. Fittingly in 1997, Wylies Baths was the
venue for a Historic Pools night to celebrate the National Trust
classification of more than 60 of Sydney's historic baths and pools.
The Newcastle Ocean Baths have hosted sculpture exhibitions, theatrical
performances as well as outdoor cinema on summer evenings. Wylies Baths
hosted the Great Inflatable Film Festival for several years.
Top
All
along the NSW coast, prices of coastal properties have increased
substantially since the 1990s. Some families have lived near the ocean baths
for generations; others have paid handsomely to move there in recent years.
Coastal communities tend to blame any disturbances on the visitors, the
'westies', the out-of-town, out-of-state or international tourists, who
don't seem to know their way around the surf beaches or the ocean baths.
Locals and regulars often speak of their preference for swimming early
before the day-trippers arrive at the ocean baths or of the pleasures of
swimming at ocean baths that are not convenient to public transport and
therefore attract fewer visitors.
People who live some distance away from the coast may also regard a particular ocean baths
as 'their pool'. Public and private transport brings people from distant
homes and holiday places to the ocean baths. Camping grounds on the Central
Coast, Illawarra and South Coast still offer the easy access to the ocean
baths that camping grounds on the Northern Beaches once did. While the Bulli
Pool was unfit for use, locals worried about the impact on the majority of the
summer crowds, who came from outside Bulli as daytrippers or as patrons of the
Council-run caravan park. Residents of south-western Sydney see the beaches and
baths at Cronulla and in the Northern Illawarra as part of their home
territory, easily accessed by rail or road.
The ocean baths can therefore be
sites of conflict between locals, regulars and those they perceive as 'outsiders'. On Sydney's Northern Beaches, the community protest that ended
the use of Avalon as a location for the Bay Watch TV series was fuelled by the
TV crew's interference with the use of the beach and the ocean baths. Reports
from Cronulla in December 2005 showed that ocean baths and ocean beaches
can be spaces of conflict between groups emphasising different cultural
expectations regarding women's choice of bathing costumes, the public
display of women's bodies or men's behaviour near women at ocean beaches or ocean pools.
Such clashes are most likely at ocean baths readily accessible by good roads
and public
transport. Finding ways to 'share space'
that minimise the chance for such clashes is an essential element in
responsible management of these public spaces.
Top
Further Information
|
|
Back
Top