The modern-day park contains a playground, recreation center, splash pad, basketball courts, soccer field, and pool.

These features were removed in 1935–1936 when the current neoclassical/Art Deco style pool was built by Aymar Embury II during a Works Progress Administration project.

[4] The park's elevated location offers views of New York Harbor, Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty, and more distantly the hills of Staten Island and the U.S. state of New Jersey.

According to Sergey Kadinsky, author of the book Hidden Waters of New York City, the pond was likely artificial since it did not appear on any maps prior to the park's creation.

The building contains a facade of brick in Flemish bond, and consists of a 1+1⁄2-story rotunda with one-story wings to the north and south, giving it a rough I-shape.

[12][13] The main entrance to the bath house, the eastern facade at Seventh Avenue, is approached by a short granite stairway, though there is also a handicap-accessible ramp to the south of the steps.

The top of the building facade is wrapped with a motif composed of cast stone and brick chevrons, set in a pattern of diamonds and triangles.

Seen from its eastern facade, the rotunda is between and set behind two piers made of Flemish bond brick, each of which contain a flagpole and tile panel.

[16] A former "comfort station" or restroom (now used as storage space) is to the south, with separate entrances for boys and girls on the north facade, but these have been bricked up.

[21] A New York Times reporter, writing in 1894, praised the "magnificent views of earth and sky and water" that could be experienced from the high point of Sunset Park, some 200 feet (61 m) above sea level.

[23] Sunset Park became a popular gathering place for residents of the area (then considered part of Bay Ridge and South Brooklyn),[23] and its initial users were mostly Polish and Scandinavian immigrants who had arrived within the last two decades.

[25] A New York Times article that year observed that the park lacked amenities and was situated on high bluffs that could only be reached by 60-foot (18 m) ladders.

[23] In 1899, the city of New York constructed a six-hole golf course in Sunset Park, and started some other improvements such as installing retaining walls.

"[35] The Fourth Avenue subway opened to 59th Street in 1915,[36] further spurring the growth of the surrounding neighborhood as a low-rise middle-class area,[20] and in particular the Finnish enclave directly south of the park.

[37] In 1934, mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia nominated Robert Moses to become commissioner of a unified New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

At the time, the United States was experiencing the Great Depression; immediately after La Guardia won the 1933 election, Moses began to write "a plan for putting 80,000 men to work on 1,700 relief projects".

[43][44] The pools would be built using funds from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal agency created as part of the New Deal to combat the Depression's negative effects.

Moses, along with architects Aymar Embury II and Gilmore David Clarke, created a common design for each of the 11 proposed aquatic centers.

Each location was to have distinct pools for diving, swimming, and wading; bleachers and viewing areas; and bathhouses with locker rooms that could be used as gymnasiums.

To fit the requirement for cheap materials, each building would be built using elements of the Streamline Moderne and Classical architectural styles.

[50] The blueprints for the Sunset Park pool were submitted to the New York City Department of Buildings in August 1935, by which point WPA workers were already working at the site.

[52][58] Despite the revitalization of the surrounding neighborhood, partially due to efforts by Asian and Latin American immigrants who moved to the area,[59] the park was still perceived as rundown, and graffiti and vandalism were common.

[57] NYC Parks continued to face financial shortfalls in the coming years, and the pools retained a reputation for high crime.

[57] Additionally, in the 1990s, a practice called "whirlpooling" became common in New York City pools such as Sunset Park, wherein women would be inappropriately fondled by teenage boys.