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Legal Name: Levittown Swimming Association, Inc.
A domestic not-for-profit organization,
incorporated June 22, 1961 in Nassau County, NY
Founded: Fall 1954
First Season: Summer 1955
Excerpted from Levittown Swimming Association:
a Community Cornerstone
by Fredrick Fogel, 2002
[...When] William Levitt completed construction of his planned community
(17,447 homes built in the Hempstead and Oyster Bay Townships)
[it] was unique in so many ways that he was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
[see below]
Levitt's plan was unique for his time [by] making Levittown a planned community rather than just a layout of tract housing. Levitt's emphasis on community was epitomized by his inclusion of over 250
parcels of property in the Levittown Park District. Levitt included nine community pools in his master plan. The original residents of Levittown were mostly refugees from the city who fled to suburbia with a dream in mind of providing a certain lifestyle for their families. These original residents had strong expectations for a new
way of life.
Out of this grew a community based swimming and diving program. The Levittown Swimming Association (LSA) was founded [in] 1954 when residents George ["Tom"] and Ann Columbo brought several residents together with the idea of creating a competitive swimming and diving program where their sons [could] compete on a local level. Tom and Ann joined with Bill Mattor and Marge Boettor and created the LSA. LSA held its first season of swim meets during the summer of 1955 under the supervision of Tom Columbo, the first LSA president.
LSA is a swimming program that utilizes the nine joint district pools. It is an all volunteer, not-for-profit organization. The basic foundation of LSA was [and still is] a program where each of the nine pools in the district had a team where children develop and learn competitive swimming skills, and then use them to compete against each other in swim meets during the season. The demographics of Levittown have changed over the years and our program has evolved with those changes.
Many of our former swimmers have gone on to join Town of Hempstead or County of Nassau as paid lifeguards.
Other swimmers and coaches also serve as swim coaches and officials for a variety of other levels of competitive swim programs. We also have many former swimmers who have come back over the years to serve LSA . LSA has been very fortunate to find quality people to serve our organization.
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