“John Bowne lived his religion, he didn’t only preach it.” So said Mayor Fiorella La Guardia in an Oct. 7, 1945 broadcast from 37-01 Bowne St. in Flushing, Queens, New York City. Bowne was the first generation to live at the house, and the Quaker was arrested there in 1662 by the men under the command of Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant. Members of the family’s ninth generation living in the house, sisters Anna Parsons and Bertha Parsons, prepared the way in the mayor’s time for it to become a museum that anyone can visit today. The remarkable story is being told again in a 27-minute film at nyc.gov. with Bowne House educator Emily Vieyra-Haley featured prominently (continuing in the family tradition: the Echo’s late Irish-language columnist Barra Ó Donnabháin was a first cousin to her mom, the late Catherine Donovan). To view the film from Prism NYC, visit here. And to see the Echo's 2023 story about the Bowne House, see here.
