About Museum in the Streets©

The Museum in the Streets© is a program that began in 1993 in the Loire Valley, France, and was created by Patrick Cardon, a former Egyptologist and administrator with the Brooklyn Museum, who resides in both France and the United States. It can be found throughout many villages in France and widely along the coast of Maine, where Cardon and his family have a house.

The former secretary general of a UNESCO organization called ICOM (the International Council of Museums), Cardon has installed the Museum in the Streets© in more than 40 towns in France and 20 in the United States. Nearby installations are in Danbury and Ridgefield, CT, and in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.

Millbrook's Museum in the Streets©

Millbrook’s Museum in the Streets© was co-chaired by Barbara Pierce, a former speechwriter at IBM and longtime area resident, and by Millbrook’s mayor, Laura M. Hurley. An old friend of Cardon, Pierce suggested bringing this project to Millbrook. With the help of her husband, Charlie, a former Chairman of the English Department at Vassar College and retired director of the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City, Pierce secured a grant to provide the seed money to launch the project. The Millbrook community more than matched the initial grant money.

Two committees have worked on this project for almost two years.

Old photos and historic documents were pored over and culled from the Town of Washington/Village of Millbrook Historical Society, and solicited from private collections. Both committees hope that this bi-lingual installation will inspire new initiatives in both the educational and business communities. They also hope that it will appeal to Millbrook’s foreign visitors and draw business traffic to the village. “Let’s admit,” says Pierce, “that Italy is fun.” (Full disclosure: The Pierces’ daughter is married to an Italian diplomat.)

David Greenwood, Town and Village Historian, wrote the English texts. His next-door neighbor, Giancarlo Grisi, co-owner of Millbrook Country House, did the Italian translations.

Millbrook’s Museum in the Streets© installation was produced in 2013-14 in collaboration with the Millbrook Library. After the opening, the Millbrook Museum in the Streets© fund will become part of the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley.

Press

The Millbrook Independent: Museum in the Streets opens with a bilingual songfest

America Oggi: Millbrook. Il "Museo nella strada" che racconta la storia dell'immigrazione

America Oggi: Millbrook. Il "Museo nella strada" che racconta la storia dell'immigrazione (PDF)

The Millbrook Independent: Climbing Family Trees in Fondi

The Millbrook Independent: Ancestry Punto Com: Finding a Needle in an Italian Haystack