People Flock to Mall, But Not Pool During Heat

This week's hot weather meant good business for the Mall at Short Hills, but it meant smaller crowds at the township pool.

Michael McAvinue, mall general manager, said there has been significant traffic at the mall this week from people who were interested in staying cool during the two days when temperatures were around 100 degrees. And people were drawn to the mall on Monday when the power was out in Short Hills, Summit and Chatham.

During Monday's power outage, the mall's restaurants also had strong traffic, he said. "People couldn't cook and wanted to get into the air conditioning, so they came here," he said.

But Thursday's traffic at the mall was back to normal as cooler weather moved into the region. Temperatures were in the upper 80s Thursday.

But the one place people weren't going during the stretch of hot weather this week was the township pool. "We had more people for the July 4 weekend than we did for the two hot days," said Recreation Director Robert Hogan. "I think when it gets to be 100 degrees people just don't want to leave their air-conditioned house."

The number of people who were at the pool for Saturday through Monday ranged from 650 to over 1,000. There were 1,033 people at the pool on Monday. But on Tuesday and Wednesday, the number of people at the pool never reached 400. Hogan said there was a swim meet at the pool on Wednesday that brought more people out, but the numbers were down for the two hot days.