July 25, 2025
Vintage City Stories made its debut this month with an interview that feels quintessentially Elizabeth: spirited, hopeful and rooted in decades-deep community ties. Host Don Treich sat down with Sophie Ramirez, executive director of the Historic Midtown Special Improvement District (SID), to talk about her personal journey from newcomer to civic leader and why Midtown’s next chapter matters for everyone who calls the city home.
Ramirez arrived from Ecuador in 1982, squeezing into a one-bedroom basement apartment with her mother and brother. “We moved around a lot,” she recalled. “I didn’t know we were being evicted.. I just thought, new school, new friends.” Those constant moves ultimately gave her a panoramic view of Elizabeth’s neighborhoods. Decades later, “everybody remembers me and I know everybody,” she said with a laugh.
Today Ramirez oversees Midtown’s SID, a district charged with keeping the commercial core “beautiful, safe and clean for the whole community.” Her mandate, she explained, is to turn recent public-realm investment, chief among them the $74.5 million renovation of the NJ Transit station into real foot traffic and fresh business activity. “We need to start building Broad Street, Midtown, to get people to come here to shop, dine and invest in the city instead of going somewhere else.”
Ramirez’s affection for Elizabeth is grounded in vivid childhood memories: weekend meals at Alvarez Café, snapshots with the Easter Bunny at CH Martin, and the thrill of shopping on Broad Street. Re-capturing that “Macy’s-in-Manhattan” energy, she believes, will hinge on small but steady improvements from sidewalk planters to brighter street lighting paired with signature events that bring people together.
Those events are growing fast. An Easter-egg hunt drew more than 400 visitors this spring—double the preregistration count. Next up is the Tour of Elizabeth bike ride on May 22, followed by a Midtown Car Show on September 27 that Ramirez promises will be “like nothing anybody has ever seen yet.” Even obsolete pay-phone kiosks are getting a second life: local artist Lauren is transforming eight of them into site-specific murals, each reflecting nearby eateries or causes. “They were supposed to be taken out,” Ramirez said, “but now they mean something.”
Asked what energizes her most, Ramirez pointed to the city’s collaborative streak. “A lot of people have the same passion I do,” she said. “If someone says, ‘Somebody should do this,’ well.. we are that somebody.” Her biggest wish? Filling empty storefronts by partnering with absentee landlords so youth programs and pop-up art can activate vacant spaces.
Ramirez’s advice for emerging leaders is simple: “Be yourself, follow your passion. If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.” With Vintage City poised to launch a new community magazine and continue its storytelling series, she urged residents to share their own journeys: “We’ve got more stories to stitch into the fabric of Vintage City.”
For a district determined to honor its past while shaping a walkable, culture-rich future, that fabric is already coming together: one planter, pay-phone mural and neighborhood bike tour at a time.
