Photo by N. Bower

By Mary Marvin, Mayor of Bronxville

April 15, 2026: I am sure you have noticed many of our venerable eating establishments getting ready for outdoor dining which commences on the 15^th.

Focus This Spring is Visual Appeal of Our Downtown

As part of the Trustees’ focus this spring on the visual appeal of our downtown, we have new requirements for dining including spacing, capacity and frontage with an emphasis on attractive detail.

Our focus this spring is on the downtown because a clean and uniform downtown is essential to the whole character of the Village as it acts as the beating heart of a community impacting our local economic vitality, safety and very importantly, our civic pride. An inviting and well maintained and visually cohesive downtown also serves as a competitive advantage that attracts visitors, elevates local property values and encourages businesses to invest in Bronxville.

Attention to detail in a business district also signals to developers and new businesses that we are “ready for business” and worthy of their investment. A clean uniform appearance creates a positive first impression.

I share with you in the spirit of this goal the letter the Trustees and I recently shared with all Village businesses as they have always been our partners as we can’t do this alone, rather work together in the spirit of cooperation as opposed to any kind of punitive measures.

Letter Recently Sent from Trustees to All Village Businesses Regarding Aesthetics of the Downtown Business District

We need your help! The Trustees and I have been receiving a steady stream of concerns/complaints about the aesthetics of our downtown business district with emphasis particularly on our storefront signage.

To that end, we have been doing our homework and have come to realize many of you have placed your signs without receiving approval from the Design Review Committee.

In an effort to work together to continually improve our downtown business district, we ask that you review the Village’s signage law and check that you are in compliance, Click here to review the Village Code and regulations. Those of you who have come before our boards and constructed what was approved by the DRC and/or Planning Board, are automatically in compliance for those particular signs.  However, in many instances additional signage was added beyond what was initially approved. We encourage you to review your approvals from the Village before reaching out to the Building Department. To our other retailers or restaurants who have not come before the board, would you kindly click on the Village sign code and regulations to make sure whatever you have displayed is in accordance with the Village’s rules which have been in place since 2002. Again, the Building Department staff are available to assist you to explain what signage is and is not permitted and how to apply for or amend your existing signage.  Staff can be reached by contacting Cristina Battista, Secretary to the Planning and Zoning Boards by emailing her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  It may be helpful to also include a digital photograph with your email.  Staff are also happy to arrange for an on-site visit to explain which signage you have is and is not compliant if that’s easier for you.

We are not sure what transpired but we feel that perhaps 70% of our current signs did not go through the approval process and we are just asking you to self-regulate as the major concerns/complaints by our residents are the haphazard and perhaps disjointed look of window signs, awnings, small decals and advertisements in the windows that do not add to the aesthetics of our beautiful downtown.

This spring the Board of Trustees will place great emphasis on our downtown aesthetics but want to work with you for voluntary compliance as punitive measures, will be used as a last resort. To use this, we ask you to please make sure, even if you did not follow the permit process that your signs meet our code.

Our goal is to have the most attractive, most appealing downtown as residents and visitors love your food, your merchandise, your hospitality, but the mish mash of unauthorized signs detracts from the quality of goods and services. We asked for your voluntary compliance and suggest 60 days to make sure whatever you have in your windows meets the Village standards as we are one team and want to move forward together to further enhance our unique downtown. 

We are in this together as visual pride is not mere fluff; it is a vital strategy for long-term community growth and sustainability. A retail store’s exterior design speaks volumes and should be focused on as much as merchandise as an attractive storefront entices potential customers to enter a store.

Most downtown designers advise us that signs should be kept to a minimum with most area communities allowing 10%-15% of a window covered with signs as cluttered signage could be silently driving customers away.

Excessive, messy or taped up signs are often viewed as tacky, causing at first glance a store to appear unprofessional or neglected. Too many signs can also act as a distraction for motorists and from the public safety perspective, excessive covering of windows block the ability of police as well as pedestrians to see what’s going on inside a business. This is a case where less is truly more.

From a historic perspective which we all treasure, consistent façades, lighting and signage can help preserve historic charm and create a unique environment to stand out in a very competitive retail environment. We are gifted with the beautiful bones of an architecturally exquisite downtown, which we need to further enhance.

In essence, when a downtown is tidy, clean and relatively uniform, it reflects a “cycle of care” that results in lasting economic and social sustainability.

A curated image and a clean crisp downtown tells both residents and visitors that the community takes pride in its appearance and not just its residential homes, thus fostering a positive self-image and a true sense of community ownership. It is a win-win on every level.

The Village is asking our merchants to be a part of this effort, and as always, we must lead by example. To that end, we started with our environmentally friendly permeable islands and tree pits and we are working with all of our garden groups to create an extremely pleasant aesthetic while encouraging walkability as the islands helped us to put some of our roads on what the Europeans call “a road diet”.

Our goal is to emulate the best of many of U.S. and European village’s where the pedestrian is valued over the auto. To further this goal, we are prepared to invest in more street trees, benches, proper lighting, better pedestrian demarcation at intersections and crosswalks and clean and attractive trash and recycling receptacles. As always, we asked for resident support. One way you could help both the Village and the shopkeepers is to try to advertise your upcoming events on our community message boards, which are centrally located on both the east and west sides of the Village and we are prepared to place more display cases to promote current events if needed. As you can imagine, it’s quite difficult for a merchant to tell a loyal customer that they can’t occasionally display a letter-sized notice in the window promoting a charity event or school activity. If posted, you can also help by removing when the event is over.

The Village government, businesses and residents, as is custom in our Village, can work together to make our downtown the model for the County.