Swim center renamed to honor Rosen
Thousands benefit from YMCA facility hotelier saved in 1992
At the sprawling aquatic center on International Drive, Orlando hotelier Harris Rosen stood poolside Tuesday, a throng of community leaders, swimming enthusiasts and well-wishers crowded around him, thanking him and shaking his hand. Many wore business suits.
Rosen wore a Speedo.
“Standing here in front of all these people is making me very uncomfortable,” the notably fit 78-year-old said quietly. “This wasn’t my idea.”
Neither, he said, was Tuesday’s ceremony to christen the facility with its official new name — the Rosen YMCA Aquatic Center.
But such is the price for good deeds, including saving what has become one of the largest such venues in the Southeast.
Here, among the hotels, restaurants, attractions and souvenir shops of Orlando’s tourism corridor, hundreds of thousands of swimmers, divers, water polo players, underwater hockey players (really!) and Special Olympians have come for 33 years. Here, they have pursued fitness, fun, friendship, personal
bests and world records.
Rosen has not only invested millions of his own dollars in upkeep and upgrades, officials said, he led the charge against demolition when, in 1992, a bank foreclosed on the property and wanted to tear it down.
He also still swims here nearly every day — about 1.5 miles on average.
“As you look at this building, envision a parking lot — because 26 years ago, those doors were chained and they had planned to bulldoze this building,” said Dr. John “Lucky” Meisenheimer, an Orlando dermatologist and Special Olympics swim coach. “And the only reason that didn’t happen was because Harris Rosen came up to those chained doors, and a Special Olympian was there, and that Special Olympian looked at him and said, ‘Did we do something wrong?’ ”
Rosen assured the young swimmer he had not. And then he started making calls. The venue, opened in 1985 as the Justus Aquatic Center, was initially a business venture by a neighboring hotel, whose owner figured he could use it to draw guests. But upkeep was enormously expensive. By 1992, it had gone into receivership and was losing about $600,000 a year. The bank closed it that January.
“It was a tough battle. It went on six months,” Meisenheimer said.
Rosen said he had plenty of fellow soldiers — not only from local supporters, including Meisenheimer, but also from Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the longtime advocate for Special Olympics, and her then son-in-law, Arnold Schwarzenegger. They persuaded the bank to donate the facility, and it reopened as the YMCA Aquatic Center that June.
Rosen has helped to make numerous improvements to the facility — with its 50-meter pool, diving well, teaching pool and a novel hydraulically retractable roof.
Scores of athletes come daily for lap swim, team practice and lessons.
“Honestly, I can say it’s my second home,” said Kayla Smith, 18, a nationalteam member who has competed in this pool since she was 10. “I come here every day to let loose. I couldn’t feel more welcome and loved… Today is amazing.”
Three-time Olympic gold medalist Rowdy Gaines, now the YMCA vice president of aquatics, understood the sentiment.
“You only have to come here at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, when this place is packed with kids, to see the difference Harris Rosen made,” he said. “He’s incredibly generous, and he never really asks for anything in return.”
Rosen himself has been swimming since he was 7 and his parents sent him to summer camp. He swam for the Boys’ Club when he was 11, the Amateur Athletic Union in high school and Cornell University in college. He tried to swim for the Army’s modern pentathlon team — swimming, shooting, fencing, horseback riding and running — but he’d never ridden a horse before.
Swimming has been his companion and comfort for decades now. Sharing it with others is part of his legacy.
“If anything makes me feel proud, it’s that thousands and thousands of young people have learned how to swim here,” he said. “I do think we’ve saved lives.”