Dolores Marsh: 40 Years Taking Care of Turtle Bay
In the 1980s, Dolores Marsh began volunteering with the Turtle Bay Association. Four decades later, and for about 40 hours a week, she’s the group’s president.
| 12 Mar 2025 | 10:17
Dolores Marsh began volunteering for the Turtle Bay Association’s special events and 40 years later runs the show.
Some people can barely balance their nine-to-five nowadays with all the other aspects of modern life. Then there are others, who run their own business while also dedicating time to nonprofit organizations. Dolores Marsh is one of the latter: She owns an advertising firm, and also serves as president of a large Manhattan civic organization, the Turtle Bay Association (TBA).
A lifelong New Yorker, Marsh has lived in Turtle Bay since the early 1980s. She joined the Association in 1985 as a special events committee member, soon progressing to events chairperson, and ultimately president in 2021.
The association’s membership has fluctuated throughout the years, but currently stand at about 1,000, all of whom contribute annual dues to help cover operating expenses and fund events throughout the year.
Marsh is constantly in search of ways to boost revenue to help the cause. It’s one of her many duties as president. Alongside her fellow TBA board members, Marsh collects and solicits dues, works to broaden membership, organizes community events, plants and maintains tree-bed greenery, and works in close conjunction with city entities such as the City Council, the Sanitation department, and the local police precinct.
A good attitude is crucial to the position: Marsh gets calls, often demanding ones, from locals asking what TBA is going to do about the garbage, the homeless, the scaffolding, the noise. They are all valid issues, but not within the scope of her authority. All Marsh can do is relay the issue to the appropriate organization, but she rolls with the punches.
The work at TBA is no small job. Marsh estimates she invests as many as 40 hours per week with the nonprofit, and that’s in addition to her full-time job running her ad business. She is not monetarily compensated for her TBA work but finds a sense of value and accomplishment in what she contributes to her neighborhood. She’s also thankful for her co-directors as “a very active and committed” team.
Marsh is dedicated to community engagement; she likes to frequent as many local Turtle Bay businesses as possible, reminding them what it means to be part of a community, and hand-delivering decals that can be proudly posted by TBA members on their storefronts. Around town, she has become known as “The Turtle Bay Lady,” a title she accepts with a smirk, but also a justified sense of pride.
Heading TBA means fielding calls about garbage, noise, scaffolding. A good attitude is needed. Dolores Marsh