Marcus Webb
Arts and culture journalist based in Downtown Newark. Marcus covers NJPAC, the Newark Museum of Art, local print culture, and the small businesses building something real in the city without anyone asking permission. He grew up in Weequahic and writes like he's still reporting it back to his neighborhood.
Fernando Abreu Has Been Giving the North Ward the Same Perfect Shave Since 1998
The shop smells like Bay Rum and barbicide and the kind of order that comes from doing one thing exactly right for twenty-five years. Fernando learned straight razor technique in Alfama and brought it to Bloomfield Avenue because there was nowhere in Newark doing it properly. That was 1998. The radio plays fado on a small speaker near the window. The chairs are the original ones. The regulars are the sons of the original regulars now, in some cases. Fernando will tell you this if you ask. He'll also tell you that the blade requires absolute confidence, and that doubt is what causes nicks. He has never, in twenty-five years, had doubt.
Report
Diana Okonkwo Is Publishing Newark Back to Itself
Newark Print Works started because Diana couldn't find a way to publish her illustrations without losing either the quality or her savings. So she bought a risograph and figured it out herself. Now she prints her own work and opens the studio to anyone in Newark who has something to say. The Newark Skyline series — the one hanging in a lot of people's apartments right now — was her third project in the space. She drew it from photographs she took from the Passaic River bridge, at the hour when the city looks like something you'd want to remember. The edition is 80. There are about 20 left. I asked Diana if she was planning a second edition. She said she wasn't sure yet, because the right answer depends on what the first edition means to the people who have it, and she wants to know that before she decides.