Bowne Playground

Bowne Playground is a neighborhood park in Flushing, Queens, near the historic Bowne House, the oldest house in Queens and a New York City landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which played a pivotal role in the history of religious freedom in America.

The Bowne House, built in 1661 by English Quaker John Bowne, was the site of secret Quaker meetings that defied Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant's ban on non-Dutch Reformed worship. Bowne's arrest and subsequent acquittal established the precedent for religious liberty in the colony.

The Flushing Remonstrance of 1657, signed by residents of Flushing protesting Stuyvesant's religious intolerance, is considered one of the foundational documents of American religious freedom, predating the First Amendment by over a century.

Modern Flushing has become one of the largest Asian-American communities in the United States, with Chinese, Korean, and South Asian populations transforming the neighborhood into a major commercial and cultural center.

Bowne Playground sits near the birthplace of American religious freedom, in a neighborhood whose contemporary diversity fulfills the promise of tolerance that John Bowne fought for over 360 years ago.