Join us in the Shipyard Passageway on Sunday, July 17 at 5pm for a very special talk, “Main Street: How a City’s Heart Connects Us All,” by Mindy Fullilove, MD, LFAPA, Hon AIA and professor of urban policy and health at The New School. Mindy is a writer and social psychiatrist who studies cities. She works on displacement, urban mental health, and collective consciousness.

How do Main Streets — like Hoboken’s Washington Street – bring us together? This intriguing question took Mindy Thompson Fullilove on an 11-year search through 178 cities in 14 countries. Fullilove has observed both the architecture and the dramas of Main Streets and believes they can help us heal from the pandemic and the injustices and challenges it magnified. On Sunday, July 17, Fullilove will share her stories and apply her observations to Hoboken – where she once lived. “MAIN STREET: How a City’s Heart Connects Us All” is her eighth book. Photo by David Noles.

This talk complements the Museum’s current Main Gallery exhibit, “The Avenue,” about Hoboken’s Washington Street, and our Upper Gallery exhibit, “When We Were Young,” Kodachrome street photography by Carol Halebian of Hoboken in the late 70s and early 80s. 

Mindy’s work is the subject of feature articles, including the 2015 New York Times “The Town Shrink.” She has published more than a hundred scientific papers and eight books. She has been given numerous awards for her work, including two honorary degrees. She was elected to honorary membership in the American Institute of Architects in 2016 and Life Fellowship in the American Psychiatric Association in 2018.

Mindy Fullilove “isn’t an urban designer, architect, or planner. She’s an M.D., a social psychiatrist and professor of urban policy and health at The New School in New York. Significantly, she’s an urbanist in the mold of Jane Jacobs, a social justice warrior with a compassionate voice who deeply understands how city neighborhoods can reflect the best and worst of our society… To understand a Main Street, and a city, she suggests, we must understand cultural roots, memory and the passage of time.” — Mary Newsom, Free-lance journalist and author, and (retired) Director of Urban Policy Initiatives, UNC Charlotte Urban Institute.

From, “MAIN STREET: How a City’s Heart Connects Us All”: Wednesday, December 23, 2015: For 25 years Washington Street in Hoboken has been a favorite place to stroll and shop, especially for Christmas.  It hosted a bookstore, toy shop, chocolate store, knitting shop, clothing stores, favorite jewelry story (Sedona) and more.  Yesterday, in making my annual visit, I was sad to learn from the owners of Sedona that they fear their rent will rise out of sight and they will be pushed off Washington Street.  “It’s becoming more corporate,” they explained, “with no room for small boutiques.”  My granddaughter Lily, who went to school in Hoboken and was on Washington Street every day, explained the changes as we walked along.  It was hard to keep track of them all.  She was a little stunned, I think, that so many landmarks of her childhood were now gone.  Commerce is a keystone of Main Streets, but it is under huge pressure: commerce can be a constant but the mix of stores shuffles all the time.  One historic place — the old flag and costume store — had a wreath on the door but was empty inside, waiting for its next iteration.  In the meantime, it was shockingly warm.  While pleasant, the unseasonable warmth is frightening in its implications.  These two processes — the instability of Washington Street and the instability of the weather — are linked.  The 64-thousand-dollar question is: What do we do?