Christine Goodman and the Jersey City Arts Scene
By Timothy Herrick
(this may be a work in progress)
The day after Dolly Parton died, Christine Goodman resigned as director of Cultural Affairs. I loved the timing. Not the Dolly part. The Mayor was on vacation. The sudden death part, no two-weeks-notice or farewell party. Like so many Jersey City neighbors, driven out by personal circumstances. Here today, tomorrow. Gone.
Nice comment about her by the mayor. The behind the scenes personal drama will be gossiped about for years to come. Now we look for who can fill her open-toe shoes.
One of the most – if not the most – transformative figures ever to be in any leadership position in Jersey City since the early 90s, when I first moved here.
I thought of all the good things that Christine – Art Fund etc. – and the fact she is likeable and was always nice to me. For better or worse, she’s made the Cultural Affairs director one of the most high profile positions in the city government, other than the mayor or council, she’s the face most everybody in town knows best.
If not the biggest, the JC arts scene is by far the most visible constituency in Jersey City. It also connects with all of the Ethnic, Cultural, Immigrant groups and of course the all-powerful-and-mighty-Jersey City Pride LGBTQ+. Goodman was the face of Cultural Affairs, and unlike her predecessors, emerged from the ranks of the scene. Everyone knew her before she was plucked for every arts person dream job – high salary with benefits and her own parking space.
She transformed the job and by doing so put a personal stamp on what was expected and required of the Cultural Affairs Department regarding arts, the public and government.
Last year, Jersey City had a heated mayoral race, first fielded by nearly a dozen or so candidates, winding down to an even hotter runoff between James Solomon and Disgraced Governor McGreevy. Complicating matters was Meredith Burns who took over Art House after Mayor Fulop hired Christine Goodman, was running on McGreevy’s slate. In Jersey City municipal races its democrats against democrats and each Mayor has their Council-slate – the political leaders of each ward – who said civics wasn’t dreary?
Christine Goodman didn’t attend last year’s second ever Art Scene sponsored Mayoral Debate at White Eagle Hall. The first one ever was when I was working at JCTC and WEH but had nothing to do with it. Fulop’s last reelection run, it was between Fulop and this other local politico who runs every chance he can get. The questions and how it was managed was typical – Jersey City Arts Leaders brought in somebody from the State Arts breeding grounds to ask soft ball question that bordered on the insipid and as far away from the realities and issues faced by Jersey City Arts, Artists and Community as Greenville is from the Planetoid of Pluto.
The lamest event ever held at White Eagle Hall, until last year’s Arts Sponsored Mayoral debate. That one worried me about the present and future of Jersey City arts. The petty egotism and anti-intellectualism inherent in the leadership of the Jersey City (and New Jersey) Arts Scene as evidence by the formatting and questioning bordered on symptoms of brain damage. Thankfully, settling for the lowest common denominator by suggesting the most inoffensive debate topics was due to the compromise of convictions . For instance, no time to question the former governor’s experience defunding state arts or any analysis of the arts history in the careers of the other local politicians debating.
But even more weirdly, no real questioning about Cultural Affairs. Christine Goodman’s name was unmentioned, even for the brief questions about changes – “my administration will help you find grants” – Christine Goodman was the name that could not be spoken. Aren’t they already helping with grants? It was so strange. You know some folks from the old country would whisper diseases like… Leukemia? This was more like we’re not programmed to respond in that area.
On Social Media everyone is praising Christine upon the news of resignation, but at the 2025 Mayoral debate no evaluation or opinion – good or bad or pretty good but we can do better or we can do worse – ever came up. Much of why the Jersey City Arts Scene had evolved so much since the last mayoral debate is Christine Goodman – by ignoring her, JCAC & company were ignoring the evolution of the cultural affairs department and the scene the organizations had created.
The main conduit between JC arts organizations and organizations who produce events (like the Puerto Rican Parade) that also fall under the cultural affairs department is the department of cultural affairs. Every Arts Scene Arts Organization barely has any community outreach. They feuded among themselves and take for granted every other segment population in the city and any opining by politicians about the arts and cultural affairs went unexplored.
An intellectually curious Jersey Arts City Scene might want to query potential mayors on what was their assessment of the progress thus far and will the future require stay the course or operational and mission changes and if the latter to what degree the update?
Well, no in-depth questions were asked and no memorable answers were given. This pathetic event ended with all the candidates playing with the child of the only mother running. During the run off, the arts council circulated an Arts “debate” between Solomon and McGreevy. Q&As. Dopey crap, thin as cellophane. You can look it up and I’d bet that both campaigns used interns and AI to produce airy word salads, useless to any voter considering the role of artists, the arts, and public funding of arts and insulting to any lover of the arts.
But again, no Christine Goodman, her name not even whispered.
Maybe Christine was implied. Most – though not all – of the scene leaders opposed the Pompidou – as did the candidates, those council-folks who went to Paris said they regretted their votes. Christine Goodman was Fulop’s girl, which is sexist and demeaning but the administration ended on a failure regarding the arts, Fulop was and is a MAGA supporter and funder. Christine Goodman’s arts career in Jersey City is bookended by the success of Art House and the failure of Pompidou. Whether the failure is bigger than the success, let art historians of the future judge.
Before Fulop hired Christine Goodman, Jersey City had The Jersey City Children’s Theatre, Puppetworks, Merseles Studios, LITM – an art bar – and dozens of cafes like T-NJ and other establishments with galleries. They also had more actual galleries that were also funky boutiques. There was the 4th Street Festival. Creative Grove.
You saw emerging galleries and artists in different JC neighborhoods, The Heights and Greenville – post-Goodman – the main energy of JC Arts is centered in the Power House district, Greenville and the Heights are once again arts and cultural deserts.
Times change, things only last as long as they can. I’m not personally blaming Goodman or Fulop or Cultural Affairs. Much of it may be generational the shift from Gen x/y leadership to Gen Y/Z and Gen Z/Gen-Alpha.
The fact though – the arts in Jersey City came from the community up – that was what made our town an arts destination that generated economic activity and enhanced the quality of life. The Jersey City arts scene has before and after to Goodman’s historical tenure. Whether if the good of the before that has been lost is a challenge or a tragedy the future may decide.
The reality is the grassroots arts scene in Jersey City more or less supported Fulop in his early elections. By the time of his departure, his policies and cultural affairs department fatally decimated the grassroots artists and arts organizations. The Jersey City Arts Scene seems more disparate and dysfunctional than ever. Okay, maybe dysfunctional is an overstatement.
Through my experience with the Jersey City Theater Center and White Eagle Hall, I worked with Christine and cultural affairs to varying degrees. Christine Goodman was always super pleasant, helpful and cooperative. I like her. From the ranks of Jersey City arts folks, she was at the time the best choice of heading cultural affairs. She deserves the accolade her departure’s inspired.
Though some in the leadership of JCTC/WEH feel differently, I believe cultural affairs and the city treated us fairly.
Supportive, that’s more matter of opinion. Friendly is not the same as a partner in the arts. No breaks were given, no one stepped up to talk with the owners of the Merseles Studios building for example. All the other knotty tax and other issues where nonprofits, arts organizations, and venues must interface with local government with, the Fulop administration and his cultural affairs department denied JCTC/WEH any special consideration. The city nickel-and-dimed both organizations at every opportunity, dismissing the community and neighborhood benefits accrued from an active arts community. This absence of advocacy may not always been a hurdle, but no helping hand to a fledgling arts organization in a neighborhood that never had arts before was frustrating and dispiriting.
Art House, the arts company she founded around the time I started writing the Dislocations Blog, never could find a forever home before Christine was hired by Fulop. I went to one of their first events, in those buildings that used to be Saint Francis Hospital and now are ugly condos. It was a mix of art and music and great art on the walls and a band tuning up for a live set. An early JC Fridays – it’s this quarterly city-wide event that one Friday a quarter art events of one sort or another are held. It was supposed to start at 6 or 5 and it was 7 and I’d taken a bunch of pictures of the groovy art and this band is tuning up by playing the same three note sequence again and again laughing at the annoyed crowd. Never used the damn pictures and never blogged about Art House.
I remember they had this neat event where all these gen X art neighbors walked up Newark Avenue to a fantastic space on JSQ. I remember going to one Art Show there I liked – it was after the blog. That place flooded once and Merseles Studios gave Art House space because the show must go on. Then they lost space and had a not as great space on the furthest outskirts of DTJC, this gross in the middle of nowhere warehouse with as much personality as the county jail.
Art House finding a permanent home – a theatre and “gallery” space in the Power House district – was concurrent with Goodman become CAD (Cultural Affairs Director). I’m sure that’s more than coincidence but so what, Art House was ignored by the city for years. Other than the failed First Street Artists Building, prior to Fulop the city’s basic attitude towards the arts was benign neglect. Favoritism or not, it’s a step in the right direction. Rent’s coming I hear.
Goodman as CAD midwifed the Jersey City Arts Scene to being more well-known, programs like the Arts Fund or Poet Laureate, from conceptualization to execution, she was essential in forming.
But, the fact of the Jersey City Arts Scene is there’s no one scene. When and where they coalesce, the limited circles are more concentric than overlapping with little acknowledgement or understanding of the rest of the city. Cultural Affairs facilitates all the ethnic parades and other festivals in the city – hey, you can’t go to them all – but not only did Goodman professionalize and evolve the Jersey City Arts scene, those other community-components of the Cultural Affairs Department flourished as much as JC Fridays or the studio tour.
Besides an innate ineptness at seeing the city outside their bubble (s), the Jersey City Arts Scene can be obtusely unaware of factors – other than technology – shaping all art – visual, theatre, literature, performance, dance, music, film – the ideas both timeless and pertinent being expressed.
But as the founding fathers realized, we have the American Revolution, and we have the American Revolutionary War. Two different objectives. Hearts & Minds vs. practical problem solving.
Art elevates society but deciding how and what the government can do to enable and optimize the benefits for society, community, neighborhoods of the arts is an ever-changing policy debate. Thus the quagmire of public spending on arts – the arts drive economic activity, public spending from grants to tax abatements requires prioritizations, tough decisions and effective policies.
Winners and losers, but we all know it’s way more complicated. Art Funding also requires finding the nexus between crafts – jewelry and other artisanal whatnot – and theatre, performance, visual arts, etc. Departments like cultural affairs at the municipal and state level are under the aegis of Tourism and CVBs. See our art, eat our food. Or, see the art gallery, redevelop the neighborhood, fix the streetlights, invite artists and candle-makers to a flea market.
Then there’s the search for funding. But luckily, Jersey City has more guidance than others. We have plebiscite. The Art Fund referendum – taxpayers voting to be taxed – demonstrate the public consensus – arts are fundamental to quality of life. They’re as worthy of funding as infrastructure. Arts require artists and arts organizations and the best way to distribute money seems through a grant system, an imperfect though proven method of arts funding.
The tragedy of Susan Goodman’s tenure as Cultural Affairs Director is the duplicity of Steve Fulop, who as Mayor funded the MAGA movement through diabetes-inducing sweetheart deals with KRE. That’s a Kushner Company, Trump’s in-laws and major MAGA supporters.
Goodman and Fulop purposely misread the meaning of the Arts Referendum – grassroots funding of the Arts Scene voted on by the people was support of arts in the community. The very opposite of the Pompidou Center – a divisive proposal completely contrary to the indisputable public will when it comes to public funding of the Arts.
Overshadowing all her other achievements, will always be Pompidou. She’s Fulop’s girl. The failed attempt to exploit Jersey City as an Arts Destination with a policy in direct opposition to the will of the people of the city, and since this could not be New Jersey without bitter irony, the biggest victim in the wake of Fulop/Goodman are the foundation and the founders of the Jersey City Arts Scene, Visual Artists.
The story threads are gnarly. From the very beginning, Pompidou divided Jersey City Arts organizations and members of the Jersey City Arts Council who facilities Art Fund grants in conjunction with the CAD.
Not that Pompidou was on the JCAC agenda, but the two leading visual arts galleries – 14-C and Curious Matters – whose only mission is to sell paintings – supported the Pompidou because of the attention it would bring to Jersey City and like trickle-down economics, local artists would eventually benefit. 14-C wrote a very intelligent argument, CM published an essay tantamount to moronic sophistry.
Nonetheless, the rifts among the arts council have never been wider. I see no interest by cultural affairs in healing any fissures. Among Goodman’s achievement is leaving behind alienated and divided arts scene and a bankrupted city government. The new mayor and council are facing difficult choices and ask anyone involved with arts and/or arts funding what line item always is the first to be cut.
Goodman may not be directly to blame for the disappearance and consolidations of the Jersey City galleries that sprung up around the 00s, but she’s why there’s no Jersey City Art Museum.
Instead of a Jersey City Arts Museum, the only half-way (emphasis on half) decent space to exhibit visual arts is Mana Contemporary. Too much space between the walls, subpar lighting and the few shows I’ve seen failed to impressed. The appeal like 150 Bay are the studio tours – artists at work – yay, bring the kids – but Mana and 150 B are like garage sales. It’s a place to gab and drink complimentary wine. The art is being done as big a disservice at that first 14-C where they showed in hotel suites!
The new Art House gallery is as funky as the Zales Jewelry Store at the Newport Mall. Like the Nimbus lobby that doubles as a gallery, the lighting seems dependent on where the sun is when you look at the painting.
Goodman leaves visual artists in what seems like an inescapable trap. Jersey City’s reputation as an arts destination has no place to experience the decades old scene that has coalesced here and established a distinctive look, diversity and attitude that critics and collectors are finally noticing. But because of Pompidou, Jersey City art exhibits are ill-lit, amateur hour presentations. Shame on us for not professionally presenting and archiving this groundbreaking work.
The visual artists came out in droves during the 1 percent movement, which happened around 2017. I still have the red shirt, with the 1 and the %. More than a hundred arts folks put on the T-shirt, rallied outside municipal hall, then went into a council meetings. The idea was that devote a smidgen of the town budget – 1 percent – to the arts. Distribution details or other related issues undiscussed. Goodman was by far – 100 miles far – no runner up in sight – the best prepared speaker. Rattling off studies about pay offs by arts investment. Public Art Funding is a massive industry for lack of a better term, and economic studies and case-studies abound. A huge network of resources are available to arts organizations and Goodman translated that data into points both the politicians and the rally goers immediately grasped.
So while supportive of the arts – and mom and apple pie and I served in the Marines – Mayor Fulop came up with an argument about budgeting so cockamamie I can barely recall it without wincing. Cities must have budgets but arts as budget item cannot be allowed because the mysteries of state government. His staffer in Trenton explained why it was prohibited. She was absurd, because there was no law and the defense was mumbo jumbo. So 1 % morphed into the Arts Fund referendum – a new tax resource – which passed in 2020.
Now, around the same time the 1 % Movement started, the city acquired the Pathside Building, this fantastic historical building. The only existing city owned property that could also be a world-class art museum. In 2017 Fulop declared: “As a city that encourages arts and celebrates culture, I am proud that we are moving forward with our plans to create a new museum that will complement our city’s dynamic communities, and will help to bring new energy into Journal Square.”
Who can forget the Architects Newspaper August 7 2018 edition. “OMA has been selected by the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA) to design the new Jersey City Museum, which will become the largest arts and culture center in Jersey City, New Jersey, once complete. OMA and AEA Consulting will provide architectural and programmatic guidance for the city-owned art museum respectively, while AMO will conduct in-house research and design. The museum is slated to open inside of the 57,000-square-foot Pathside Building near Journal Square and will be Jersey City’s largest art center, according to OMA.”
So in 2019 there were a bunch of community meetings with AEA. They showed examples of cultural centers with exhibition spaces that looked fantastic and doable and artists and arts organizations discussed community and arts and it was quite lovely, constructive and one of the most optimistic events ever held by cultural affairs. Fulop is a decent man, but he knew of these community events, presumably saw the reports and transcripts, and aggressively supported the Pompidou and KRE, polar opposites of the content and substance of those community meetings. This behavior reflects a self-interest leadership on par with infamous Jersey City mayors like Hague, etc. Creepy, Greedy, Nihilistic. Positively Nixonian.
With the 1% Movement irrelevant, Goodman now CAD, she led the nuts-and-bolts efforts of the referendum. It was February of 2020, COVID looming, pre-lockdown and there was an historic meeting where everybody who was anybody in the arts scene attended with the Mayor explaining the referendum process. It was Christine’s first appearance as arts advocate and loyal bureaucrat. Her Cultural Affairs Director Debut. The Mayor was there too and did most of the heavy lifting persuasion-wise.
The meeting went well I suppose, it was the last official appearance by me as a JCTC associate, but that wasn’t due to the meeting but the pandemic and lockdown which reshuffled the cards.
So, after the funding concept was explained, I asked the Mayor “will the funds be used for the Jersey City Art Museum.”
A know-it-all said “The Jersey City Museum is closed” – he was about to recite the well-known history of the disaster that was the Jersey City Museum.
“Art Museum” I corrected. “It hosted the J-Cast opening party, we had the community meetings with the consultants. The place up in Journal Square.”
“The Pathside building,” said the know-it-all.
The Mayor paused. I interview people for a living. The question caught him off guard. He said that was a separate subject, and it was never mentioned by Fulop or Goodman again.
They had ample opportunity too, because during the lockdown, months after the referendum passed and Goodman was the first CAD strangers recognized with glad tidings, Fulop and Goodman got on board the Pompidou Express. The first proposal was the Pathside building, the Jersey City Museum and Cultural Center not even whispered and what passes for New Jersey and Jersey City journalism these days suffered from short term memory loss.
What was the final report? I guess OPRA might tell us. The Architects Fulop hired – OMA – designed both the Pompidou at Pathside – and when the state legislature cancelled that – the second building – a new building in JSQ to house Pompidou, the rendering is utterly hideous – the city voted down that boondoggle – so OMA designed both of them. Fear not, OMA is the architect behind the Boutique Hotel by KRE, one of the last deals Fulop pushed through.
Of course, now we’re in a new crisis with the tax increase yet with a new opportunity, the reconditioned Loewe’s opening. The era of café galleries and raw space black box theaters has passed, but nothing substantial has yet to replace it. Artists are adrift. Organizations are broke and struggling. The national and state environment for the arts is even more discouraging, so let’s be realistic. Forces are at work making life more difficult for artists to live and their creativity to flourish that go well beyond Christine Goodman or Steve Fulop or the Jersey City Arts Council.
Art and Artists – what is their role, what should be funded through tax dollars, how can the impact of the spending be measured? Can a city support without coopting – can artists and arts organizations comply without morally compromising? Was the revolution lost by Christine Goodman winning the war?