This week for Faces of Kingston I am pleased to present a discussion with Hillary Harvey, a leading light in both community discourse and general good energy.
Morgan Y. Evans: How long have you been a resident of Kingston? What is an early memory or impression you’ve retained?
Hillary Harvey: I grew up in Woodstock and used to hang out on the Rondout. I love the proximity to the water and the small-town feeling in the neighborhood. So when I was pregnant with our second daughter in 2009 and my husband and I were looking to buy our first home, the Rondout was the place to search. The fog and hills remind me of San Francisco, and the historic buildings echo with previous inhabitants. The Rondout haunts me in a good way; it captures my imagination. I love that my children get to grow up here.
So you seem to have a colorful, well rounded life. In addition to having kids, you host The Source on our budding Radio Kingston and teach yoga, correct? Do you think people who don’t do yoga sort of see it as silly? I think it can be extremely beneficial (if you have the discipline) for depression management, centering and so many other health reasons. I need to start again.
Yoga is fun, and for me, it’s a lifestyle. I’ve practiced all my adult life, sometimes without any discipline at all. From my first class at The Yoga House in 2013, I felt like I’d found my yoga people. The co-owners helped me take yoga to another level, and I teach vinyasa there. I’m fascinated by all the different yoga styles, from yang to yin. I just finished an aerial yoga teacher training at Rainbow Body Yoga in Red Hook. For me, all the different expressions of yoga accomplish the same thing: a way to feel at home in my body, to steady my mind and lift my spirit.
This is [laughs] maybe a hard question. Do you think we have healthy political discourse in our city?
I’m not sure there is such a thing as healthy political discourse in America right now. But I think Kingston is trying to change that locally, and that’s something I’d like to be part of. To be healthy, there needs to be equitable decision-making, and that’ll only happen when people take their thumbs off the scales, share power and put good processes in place. I’d like to see us listen to different experiences without hating or fearing or calling out or canceling people. That’s what healthy political discourse looks like to me.
What got you into activism and civic engagement? What have been some of the most interesting things to cover on your show or moments that stick out as having been interesting to be part of? I like that you had an episode about going beyond plastics.
I don’t consider myself an activist, though maybe I’m an advocate. I co-founded Women’s History Month Kingston last year to celebrate people who identify as female who have been left out of our historical narrative. It was such important fun. Save the date for March 2020!
Really, I’m a journalist. I find it deeply rewarding to interview people about their interests and experiences. And I love to craft stories in any media — visual, written, audial — that shed light on something. I’m open to all topics, but I’m generally called in some way to the work that I do.
You recently were on the Hudson River Maritime Museum’s solar-powered boat. Do you frequent the museum often? Seems like a place kids would love, for sure.
We’d never been on the Solaris before, and it was just incredible that it was built right there at the Riverport Wooden Boat School. We have almost all the city’s museums downtown, and I love that. We walk to the Maritime Museum to play on the boat behind the museum. We ride the Trolley Museum’s trolley out to Rotary Park. We attend programming at the African Roots Center, ASK and the Reher Center. Downtown has beautiful boutiques, delicious restaurants and the wine bar, Brunette, the beach, the lighthouse, the Greenline and residents who have lived here for generations. I’d like people to know that we’re more than a commercial district or a place to party sometimes at an annual festival. We’re a neighborhood.
How do you feel about the pace of development in our city? You said you live Downtown but work in Midtown often. I often discuss Uptown a lot so I’d love to know your general feelings about any areas of the city.
Well, I live next to an abandoned excavation pit which my 7-year-old son fell into, so I know that irresponsible development can be city-sanctioned here in Kingston. It’s a problem that people only think of Downtown as a victim of urban renewal — which it absolutely was — because they use that to justify savior projects which deny the residents here any power in the decision-making. Development needs to be responsive to the community and include community benefits.
People are stuck in their thinking that development is the economic cure-all. While I appreciate new investment in Kingston and the historic rehabilitation, new amenities, and new people that brings, I’m concerned that people can’t afford to live in Midtown, and I’m concerned about people being left behind. Development is great if you’re looking for investment property, but it’s not always great if you’re looking for a home.
What inspires you the most about Kingston right now?
Just in the last couple of years, I’ve found more and more ways to get out onto the water, and that’s changed everything for me. I take any opportunity I can get to be out on the Rondout Creek and the Hudson River. You see Kingston from a different perspective, and it’s healing.
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