空中一窥曼哈顿的屋顶泳池

High above the sweaty streets lies Manhattan's most hidden luxury: the rooftop pool.

曼哈顿拥挤街道上空隐藏着最秘密的奢侈：屋顶游泳池。

In New York City, it's always about numbers. The Department of Environmental Protection has picked some 1,700 municipal-owned properties — 500 schools, 600 comfort stations, 10 housing projects, 400 spray showers and 87 parks among them — to help the city cut back on water use. For locals nobly struggling to conserve resources, there is also this number to make them steam: $7.5 million. That's the asking price for a four-bedroom apartment in Franklin Place, a luxury condo development in TriBeCa with a rooftop pool.

在纽约市，一切都与数字有关。环境保护部挑选了大约1700个市属地产——包括500个学校，600个公厕，10个住宅，400个喷泉和87个公园——以帮助本市减少用水量。对努力节约水资源的当地人来说，还有个数字会让他们很生气：750万美元。它是特里贝克区奢侈公寓大楼富兰克林公寓(Franklin Place)的一个带屋顶泳池的四居室公寓的要价。

You wouldn't know it, but they're up there — those turquoise oases, invisible to those of us who cope each day with sour summer smells, sweltering subway platforms and scorching sidewalks. More than any other city, New York converts the graph of its income inequality into a vertical urban plan, with most people spread out at street level — conniving to linger for just one extra second before an air-conditioned storefront when its door swings open — and the lucky few in their secret aeries and tiny triangle bikinis, lolling poolside.

你可能不知道，但它们就在上面——那些蓝绿色的绿洲。我们这些每天忍受着夏天的酸腐味、闷热的地铁站台和灼热的人行道的人是看不见的。纽约把收入差距表现为垂直的城市规划，在这一点上它甚于其他任何城市。大部分人生活在街面上，当有空调的店面的门转开时，纵容自己在那里多停留一秒；而幸运的少数人待在秘密的屋顶上，穿着小小的三角形比基尼，懒洋洋地躺在泳池边。

Once upon a time, relief from summer in the city meant a vandalized fire hydrant or a snooze on the fire escape. When I was growing up in New York, the closest thing to a rooftop pool was dropping water balloons onto friends from my second-story window, before trading places so they could drop them on me. Rooftops were deserts of sticky blacktop, the last places to which any sane New Yorker would retreat. And rooftop pools were as exotic as soccer fans. But now they're proliferating as come-ons for condos and hotels — whose developers, truth be told, would probably prefer erecting more lucrative penthouses but must occasionally meet bothersome green requirements. Landscaped pools help turn those requirements to their advantage.

很久以前，城市里的夏季避暑方法就是故意破坏消防龙头，或者在安全出口打个盹。我在纽约长大时，最接近在屋顶游泳的活动是从二楼窗户往楼下的朋友们身上丢水气球，然后交换位置，让他们往我身上丢。当时的屋顶是粘糊糊的沥青荒漠，任何理智的纽约人都不会去那里避暑。屋顶泳池和足球迷一样是罕见事物。但是现在它们数量激增，成了公寓或酒店的卖点——说实话，开发商们很可能愿意修建更多赚钱的顶层公寓，但是有时必须达到麻烦的绿化要求。景色宜人的泳池把这种要求变成了优势。

Are we jealous? The pools are utilitarian, occasionally clumsy architecture, mostly devised to maintain an aura of exclusivity. The real estate market thrives on amenity envy. And yet, envy aside, there is something deliciously voyeuristic about helicopter photographs of a suddenly unfamiliar, upturned cityscape dotted with David Hockney bathers in dappled water and lounge chairs. Those chairs come with their own numbers. The Dream Downtown, a hotel in the Meatpacking District, charges $175 a day to use the pool, Monday through Thursday. A cabana on the weekend will set you back at least $2,500.

我们嫉妒吗？泳池是功利主义的、有时甚至是笨拙的建筑，大多是为了体现它的专享性。真正的地产市场靠的是令人羡慕的便利设施。但是，先不谈嫉妒，只说那些用直升机俯拍出来的照片，它们有一种好玩的偷窥意味——城市景观向上伸展，变得陌生，散布在水波荡漾的泳池中或躺椅上的游泳者很像大卫·霍克尼(David Hockney)的油画。这些椅子也是有标价的。肉库区的梦想市中心酒店(Dream Downtown)周一至周四租用一天泳池要价175美元。周末租一个有凉台的小屋至少要收2500美元。