Welcome to Bowne Park Civic Association

With very sad news, Barbara Embriano passed away on Saturday, August 31, 2024. Her older son, George Embriano (who was very ill in hospice) passed away on Friday, August 30, 2024.

The wake was held on Sept 4th and funeral mass on Sept 5th.

We extend our deepest love and gratitude to Barbara, a very gracious lady and devoted President of the Bowne Park Civic Association, and the loss of her loving son. Our deepest condolences go to her family.

— Bowne Park Civic Association

Bowne Park Civic Association

Our Letter to Representatives and Government Officials

“We are writing today to urge you to oppose the City of Yes proposals that you will be voting on soon. These proposals will have negative impacts in both low-density and high-density areas of our city.

While the City of Yes – Housing Opportunity proposal will frankly have catastrophic consequences on our residential communities, the matter at hand now is the City of Yes –Economic Opportunity proposal which, if passed, will allow unregulated commercial uses throughout all of our neighborhoods. This pressing matter must be rejected to help preserve communities across the city and allow us to consider better solutions that will get our city back on its feet – the right way.

While many of the aspects of these proposals will have dire impacts on our community, some of the worst include:

– Allowing owners of houses and apartments to open business establishments including massage parlors, nail salons and barbershops which will disrupt the quality of life in neighborhoods across the city and negatively affect the residential atmosphere that we have fought to maintain.

– This proposal will allow businesses into commercial areas where they shouldn’t be able to locate, creating dangerous conditions on neighborhood retail commercial strips.

– Expanding the areas where cabaret licenses will be granted which will diminish the quality of life in residences that are in close proximity to these areas.

– Allowing retail/office/storefronts such as corner stores

– Up to 2500 square feet on all properties within 100 feet of every corner on every residential block, transforming the quieter areas of our city into an unrecognizable commercial nightmare.

These changes, along with many others proposed alongside them, will lead to a need for increased enforcement from various city agencies that are already not equipped to take on the volume of issues we have today, let alone in the future. Between staffing shortages and newly announced budget cuts these changes are all but guaranteed to place the burden of enforcement on already strained city workers. In addition, when considering zoning proposals with a citywide impact like these to the zoning code, collateral damage must be taken into consideration. In this instance, the myriad unintended consequences that would occur from adoption of these zoning changes are immense – and unacceptable.

As residents of New York City and as Board members of the Bowne Park Civic Association, we will unquestionably be affected by the negative impact of these proposals.

We urge that you take these points into consideration, and that you further research and weigh how these proposals can affect all of your constituents.”

Sincerely,

Bowne Park Civic Association

Looking back at

Bowne Park Civic Association

Accomplishments

The Bowne Park Civic Association was born out of need. At 161st street and 29th avenue, there was the Bowne Park Bar. It was a neighborhood bar that was always quiet, but it was sold and the new owner brought in motorcycle clubs and noisier clientele that was not acceptable to the neighborhood. So the civic association was formed and with the help of State Senator Frank Padavan, we closed the bar.

Since then we have maintained our community in many ways. Your support for only $15 a year membership and your participation help maintain the community.

We stopped the city from putting up alternate side of the street parking signs throughout our area.

We sued the FFA about noisy aircraft flying low over our neighborhood.

We were one of the leaders in a fight by 1400 civic associations to prevent 100% re-assessing and passed S700a preventing the city from huge increases in your real estate taxes. For $15.00 we have saved you thousands of dollars each year. See VIDEO explaining this serious real estate tax issue.

We formed a neighborhood patrol that watched our area till late in the night. (Not now operating).

We put Stop signs where needed.

We closed a Gambling House that tried to operate in our area.

We put the Bocci courts in Bowne Park and generally monitor the park.

With the help of school children we plant trees in the park on Arbor Day every year.

We make sure that the city maintains all city services.

We hold open meetings with speakers on many important subjects.

We held a 10th year 9/11 Memorial in Bowne Park that drew over 1000 people.

We hold two Music In The Park days each year, drawing many people to enjoy 1950s music.

Every holiday season we light a Holiday tree and Menorah, giving free hot chocolate and cakes to a crowd of about 100 people while singing holiday songs.

We rented a dumpster so members could get rid of electronic equipment that sanitation will not take.

We hold candidates night so you can meet and hear the candidates running for office.

We conserve the association’s area as 1 and 2 family zoning.

We keep our community informed of new laws that the city makes and protest laws we don’t like.

We co-operate with other neighborhood and civic associations in promoting cultural events and fighting for the rights of our communities.

And all of this for $15.00 a year

Our political power comes from the number of paid members [voters] we boast.

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Real Estate Taxes

Learn how your real estate taxes are determined and how to prevent changes to the system that will hurt you.

This 12-minute video by John Procida explains the whole history of assessing homes
and the Civic Associations’ efforts and solution that must be preserved.
Click on image or HERE to view video.

2024 Annual Membership Drive

Join BPCA to reap the benefits of being a member.

We thank our current members for renewing and welcome the many new members.

Shady Tactics of Pet Stores Hidden from Buyers

“A surprising number of people still don’t know that pet stores are bad places to acquire a dog—that they are, in fact, the harmless-looking, public face of a very shady and often cruel industry.”

Most pet store puppies come from puppy mills.
Fancy-sounding registrations are mostly meaningless sales tactics.
Payment plans are unethical and exploitive.

For more information, click HERE.

Gifting of Animals

Gifting of animals for holiday events or any other events is detrimental to animals and a responsibility that recipients don’t necessarily want. Many such ‘gifts’ are discarded because there is no interest in the animals or they are too difficult to take care of.

These animals are typically euthanized or dumped somewhere where they die because they cannot take care of themselves.

Please do not gift animals. They are living, sentient beings that need a lot of care and love.

For more information:

Deadly Results

Earlier this month, several guinea pigs were dumped in Prospect Park and left for dead.

Luckily someone willing to rescue them passed by to help. Without this person’s support, these animals would have frozen to death, starved to death, or would have been attacked by hawks circling above.

Guinea pigs depend on humans to survive.

Allowing guinea pigs to be purchased, unsterilized, from pet stores in the city leads to rapid reproduction and overflowing shelters struggling to keep up with the intake.

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Community Notices

Don’t forget to read about our events, updates, alerts from our eNewsletter.

Click on button to join our online newsletter to stay in touch with Bowne Park Civic Association announcements. In addition we forward emails from other organizations such as the Parks Dept via our newsletters:

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If you are not getting our online newsletters…

… Please send us your corrected email address HERE. It must be in the format [email protected], for example [email protected] (no spaces are allowed).

If you are interested in receiving our newsletters, please consider becoming a member. Click HERE for more information.

Neighbors, join Nextdoor, a free private online network. Members share service provider recommendations, items for sale/free, lost pet notifications, safety updates, local events and much more.

To join, go to www.nextdoor.com

Become a Member of

The Bowne Park Civic Association