- City:
- El Segundo, CA
- Site Type:
- Swimming Pools, Parks and Recreation
- New Deal Agencies:
- Works Progress Administration (WPA), Work Relief Programs
- Completed:
- 1940
- Quality of Information:
- Good
- Marked:
- Yes
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
In 1940, the Work Projects Administration (WPA) built the Urho Saari Swim Stadium in El Segundo, CA. It was named after the world famous swimming and water polo coach.
Today, the 25-yard pool—known as “the Plunge”—is administered by the El Segundo Recreation and Parks Department. It closed for extensive renovations in 2021 and is expected to re-open in 2025.
There are two bas-reliefs at the entrance to the stadium, of a male and female swimmer; it is unknown whether they are New Deal art projects.
Source notes
Site originally submitted by Penny L. Richards, PhD (Research Scholar, UCLA Center for the Study of Women) on March 17, 2008.
Additional contributions by David Jonta.
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Lauren MacDonald Cassatt
Adam Guy
Holly Lipscomb
Katie Chatwin
My mother, Helen MacDonald, taught swimming at the Plunge with Coach Saari, starting in 1955. At the time, all El Segundo schoolchildren (through 6th grade) went to the Plunge every week for lessons. That’s one of the reasons El Segundo was such a powerhouse in swimming and water polo. My mother retired after 30 years and continued with private lessons until she was 90. She died in 2008 at the age of 92.
Mrs. MacDonald taught me and other Center Street students how to swim back in the 60s and 70s. I remember your dear mother with great love and affectation.
Best place to grow up!
I recognize your name. I believe you were a friend of my sister Pat Bronson. (Now Applegate).
Segundo was the best !!
The bas-relief figures were sculpted by Robert Merrell Gage according to an El Segundo Herald newspaper article from June 27, 1946. Gage also worked on several other New Deal projects and the figures are original to the building, so it is likely that they are New Deal art projects.
Holly, can you link the Heralds newspaper article about the sculpture?