In the Holly City, a Whole Downtown Remembers How to Throw a Party

If you want to understand a town, don't read its brochure. Go stand on its main street on the one day a year it closes the road to cars and gives it back to the people. In Millville, that day is today.

Holly City Fest takes over High Street this Saturday, from 11 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon — free, the way the best things in a small city still manage to be. There'll be live music drifting down the block, food trucks lined up with the windows open, vendors under pop-up tents selling the kind of stuff you didn't know you needed until you saw it. And for the kids: pony rides, train rides, face painting, balloons, games, and — because somebody in the planning meeting clearly has a sense of humor — a foam party.

Not a museum. A block party.

Millville has called itself the Holly City of America for well over a century, back to the days when the holly trade and the glassworks put this place on the map. That's a lot of history for one downtown to carry. What I love about a day like today is that it doesn't ask High Street to be a museum. It asks it to be a block party. By noon the crowd thickens and you start running into people — the neighbor you keep meaning to call, the guy who did your gutters, the teacher who had your daughter in third grade. Somebody's grandmother is holding down a folding chair like a fortress. A toddler is covered head to toe in foam and could not possibly be happier about it.

A good downtown festival makes a small city feel, for a few hours, exactly as connected as it wishes it always was.Max Cedar

The work you feel but don't see

A festival like Holly City Fest doesn't just happen. Somewhere behind the fun is a recreation department that booked the bands, a public works crew that set up the barricades at dawn, a fistful of local vendors betting a Saturday on their neighbors showing up, and volunteers who'll be sweeping High Street long after the last balloon animal has deflated. You rarely see those people. You feel their work in how easy the day looks.

So if you're anywhere near Cumberland County and you've got no plans, point the car toward Millville. Park a few blocks out and walk in. Buy something from a vendor who'll remember your face. Let the kids ride the train twice. The Holly City is throwing itself a party on High Street today. In a summer that's nearly spent, that's about as good a reason as any to show up.

Based on reporting from the City of Millville, Visit Millville NJ, and Mommy Poppins.