Coogee Media

Coogee Aquarium Baths

The Coogee Aquarium Baths used to be at 161 to 167 Dolphin Street Coogee and were opened in October 1932. There were on the site where the Coogee Sands Hotel and Apartments now stand, next door to the Coogee Palace Aquarium hotel and nightclub. They replaced earlier-built, open-air baths. Many people mistakenly believe the baths were housed in the Aquarium building, when in fact they were located next door.

The 50 yard long pool ran north, back from its Dolphin Street frontage. Tiered seating ran alongside the sides of the pool, and on top of this were two further mezzanine levels of dressing cubicles. The pool was enclosed by four walls and had no roof, it was open to the sky. Doorways on the northern wall led to dressing rooms on the northern side of the building. It could accommodate 4000 spectators for swimming competitions. The pool was one of the main sites for competitive swimming in Sydney and favourite for school swimming carnivals and sports day outings.

To commemorate the official opening of the Coogee Aquarium Baths, the N.S.W. Women's Amateur Swimming Association staged a combined swimming carnival and dance while swimming and diving demonstrations were given by top State and Olympic swimmers from Australia and overseas.

Enlarged 1937
The baths were upgraded in 1937 and lengthened from 50 yards to 55 yards so that they could accommodate "metric" 55 yard and 110 yard races due to be held in conjunction with the Sydney Empire Games of 1938. In their heyday, the baths were an exciting place to go where elite sportspeople and celebrities mixed with recreational swimmers. Time and wear, however, took their toll on the baths.

Dangers
Swimming, as always, could be a dangerous pastime. On the same day in March 1940 that it reported that a boy had been seriously injured with a broken skull at the Ramsgate baths, the Sydney Morning Herald also reported on the tragic death of Sydney Piggot, aged 40 of Surry Hills. He died after jumping from the diving board at the Aquarium baths while his wife and three children swam at the other end of the pool.

Seen Better Days
I remember as a school boy in the early 1960s, being taken by teachers to the baths for school swimming sports' days. Old Coogee hands talked of the baths as being like the wonder of the age. On first passing the little ticket office with my class and entering what to me seemed like a dank, dark, old pond, I was mightily disappointed. Rather than being the most fabulous recreational resource, the grey old buildings seemed, to me, to have had better days. When the Truth newspaper, never a journal that did not highlight any sensational news, had the water from three Sydney Swimming Baths (Domain, Redleaf and Coogee Aquarium Baths) tested, it reported the baths' water was contaminated:

Three samples of water taken from the Domain Baths, the Coogee Aquarium and Redleaf Pool were submitted by Truth to Dr. Finckh, Macquarie St. specialist, in containers which had been certified clean by the Government Analyst (Dr. Taylor). Dr. Finckh reported that the specimens taken from the Domain Baths and Coogee Aquarium were "grossly contaminated." The Redleaf Pool specimen was found to be contaminated but to a lesser extent.

A 1953 newspaper ad on the proposed sale of the Aquarium Baths
gives an indication of the scale of the building and its facilities.

Heffron Pool
When the "modern" Olympic Pool was opened by Randwick Council at Heffron Park, Maroubra in the early 1960s, the sparkling waters of the beautiful new blue and green tiled pool with stainless steel accessories became the preferred swimming destination of myself and my friends. It was 50 metres long and 8 lines wide with separate dressing rooms, and a canteen and you could enjoy the warm sun on the spacious open lawns. Admission was three-pence for children.

The Aquarium Baths found it difficult to compete with the new, modern facilities. Fashion was changing and the beach and surfing became a magnet for Coogee's youth. The baths were demolished in the 1960s and replaced with a commercial building.

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