Gordon Pool

This guide to Gordon Pool in Tel Aviv opens with retirees banging on the gate before dawn, demanding an early swim at the seaside pool that architect Werner Joseph Wittkower built in 1956, fed by salt water drawn from a well beneath the city. You'll hear how a 2006 push to redevelop the land threatened to close it, and how songwriter Yoni Rechter, rocker Riki Gal and comedian Keren Mor all rallied to save it. Even the pool's longtime lifeguard, a man everyone called Chaim, gets a mention for his running feud with swimmers in flippers.