Gold Star Pool

The Gold Star pool has a friendly staff and is almost always empty. Though other pool goers may be middle school boys who splash and yell, 75 cents is a very fair price for a great time! Also the pool’s chlorine is well balanced.

This place is the best. It’s open late on the weekdays (until after 7), so it makes for a perfect after-​work dip. The deep end is ACTUALLY DEEP. As in, I’m nearly 6 feet tall and I cannot come close to touching the bottom. Best 75 cents you’ll spend all summer.

this public pool is a great find in my neighborhood of east cambridge. 75 cents will buy admittance to a large pool with the deep end lined off, four life guards on duty, packed to the gills late in the afternoon with the high school crowd and a few other older people from around the neighborhood. it is not a quiet and peaceful environment by any means, as even the school kids who are not swimming are hanging out at the pool’s concrete edge socializing with others.
if you have questions, such as their hours [they are always open], a live person will actually pick up the telephone when you call. the people who are staffed here are also very friendly and approachable. very refreshing to have this in the neighborhood!

You haven’t experienced summer until you’ve visited the Gold Star Pool, paid your 75 cents to enter, grabbed a piece of concrete for your stuff, and holed up in the highly chlorinated deep end, watching little kids shit-​start with each other.
I love this place so much! It’s very townie but I love that. You can mostly escape the Cantabrigian Whole Foods crowd here. The first half of the summer, when it was regularly reaching 100 degrees and we hadn’t put in our air conditioner yet, I’d put on my bathing suit before leaving work and bike down to Berkshire Street, park my bike, and just soak in the pool for about an hour, following it with an Olecito roasted poblano taco on my way home. Now THAT is summer in a nutshell.

now, it’s shy of 5 stars b/​c ‘as good as it gets’ would include a beer and a fish taco, maybe a wave pool section and diving board. that said, three cheers for municipal pools!!! 75 cents, and walking distance it perfect for a quick dip before dinner to cool of the cranky little ones and triumph. and the lifeguards are all great — all FIVE of them on duty — friendly and keepin’ it real. thanks, Cambridge!

This is how citified and vulgar I am: Screw the beach. Screw Cape Cod. Give me a municipal outdoor pool, staffed by indifferent teenagers in sun-​bleached red swimsuits, surrounded by shadeless concrete, overly chlorinated, possibly contaminated with toddler pee, and overrun with screaming tweens plus that one kid who goes swimming in cut-​off jeans. Charge me seventy-​five cents to get in, and make me bring my own deck chair and snacks. I’ll love you for it, because I’m easy, and not just because you’re like a mile from my apartment.
Today was 90-​plus degrees and sunny. Some people retreated indoors, camping out in movie theaters or hiding in their homes to do sexual things with ice cubes. I disdain such shrinking violets, and prefer to embrace the swelter with a book, a big bottle of water, shades, tunes, and a swimming pool five steps away. Get wet, take a few laps, and be cool for half an hour of reading, easy. Rinse, repeat. Pause occasionally to take in the scene, and take note of potential cannonballers who’ll splash water all over your reading material. There’s shade against the locker rooms if you are fish-​belly white (like me) and a little set of sprinklers over by the shallow end. Remember your sunscreen!