Kips Bay

There is so much to celebrate at the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club – see below!

The Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club is now over 105 years old. They were born a century earlier on February 8, 1915, when the Kips Bay Neighborhood Association met to discuss the problem of roving gangs of boys disturbing the neighborhood. The Association resolved to create a Boys Club to address the problem and help the boys in the neighborhood. In the first year, a few volunteers took regular turns mentoring 105 boys while organizing recreational activities for them, such as boxing matches and games. Milestones in the Club’s history since moving to the Bronx include:

• Expanding the flagship headquarters, now the Lucile Palmaro Clubhouse, in 1976 and 1984 to accommodate growing membership and to add a swimming pool and an auditorium, and again in the 1990s to add many of the large and varied athletic facilities that are there today

• In partnership with HELP (Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged), initiating on-site Boys & Girls Club services at two homeless shelters in 1998, the first Club in the national Boys & Girls Club movement to do so

• Completing the Frederic R. Coudert Sports Complex in 2002, which features the only ice rink in the Bronx

• Acquiring two new service venues in 2005 in New York City Housing Authority Community Centers – Castle Hill Houses and Throggs Neck Houses

• Acquiring a renewable lease to Camp Sebago in 2006, which brings the time-honored benefits of rustic camping to hundreds of urban youngsters every year

The Club added its 10th service venue in June 2010, when the Frederic R. & Margaret Coudert Clubhouse opened in the West Bronx Heights, a location terribly underserved by social services for children. Now, the Clubhouse is on pace to enroll 2,000 members annually by 2018. This Clubhouse is the first Boys & Girls Club to serve the area, which recorded an unemployment rate of more than 13% in 2012, the highest in the New York City metropolitan area. The state-of-the-art 28,000 square foot facility provides the latest in technology and included a gym, a performance space, a dedicated floor for the youngest group of members who are 6-to-9 years old, a games room, and an education floor with a computer lab.