#NYC gets wet and wild as pools reopen following a budget crisis delay

The Big Apple became Waterworld as city residents got wet and wild in this weird pandemic.

Children and adults alike recovered some of their lost summer by chilling out at the eight recently reopened public pools across the city. To allow for safe social distancing, maximum pool capacities are now reduced 30 percent.

In Harlem, Wagner Pool, which allowed 180 people to frolic last season, now permits 125.

“This is great man. I feel like I’m back at home where I belong!” rejoiced one pandemic fashionista, clad in orange swimming trunks and matching orange surgical mask as a pool staffer rubbed suntan lotion on his back.

“He’s spoiled!” the staffer quipped. “A little bit,” the pampered patron responded.

Some ecstatic kids launched into the pool as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

One sunbather donning a black swimsuit and mask noted, “Some time outside is always good. It’s good to get out and enjoy the weather.”

Reopening schools was another story.

“I don’t feel too great about the schools opening just yet,” she said.

In Sunset Park pool in Brooklyn, one delighted dad, Andre Deazle, 43, helped his two children navigate the water, all of them clad in masks.

“It was a great day that ended with us safe and having fun,” Deazle said.

The temperature stood at 87 at 5 p.m. and Sunday, the Big Apple will bake and bring 94-degree weather — but with humidity making it feel closer to 100-degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

In fact, the heat wave is expected to last several more days.

Other pools that reopened are Mullaly in Highbridge, the Bronx, Sunset Pool in Sunset Park, Brooklyn; Liberty Pool in Jamaica, Queens; Fisher in Elmhurst, Queens; Kosciuszko in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and Tottenville and Lyons pools on Staten Island.