Category Archives: Features

Teresa’s is a Well-Olive-Oiled Machine

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By Andres Martinez

Pizza ovens rumble and servers haul orders back and forth while a cloud of whole-wheat flour engulfs the tables, staining employees’ and customers’ clothes with a chalky finish. Hidden in busy Palmer Square, Teresa’s sits in an alcove that draws in consumers with its quaint patio area and hospitable service, emanating a simplicity so often forgotten in today’s dining and food culture.

Teresa Azario and her husband Raul Momo’s desire for a romantic and practical cafe led to Teresa’s inception. Teresa’s serves as an intimate space for their customers and a bridge to share their culinary vision of fresh Mediterranean dishes. Teresa’s has been serving the Princeton community since 1987, opening first on Nassau Street before relocating to its current home in Palmer Square.

In the present day, Azario’s grandson, Luke Momo, has taken up the mantle of the Theresa’s brand. The restaurant operates as a subsidiary of the Terra Momo Restaurant Group, an organization founded by the family that owns several other restaurants, including Mediterra, Eno Terra and the Terra Momo Bread Company. 

Momo stresses that Teresa’s love for ambiance and giving guests a great meal helps them “build those meaningful life moments.” He emphasizes the efforts put into maintaining a cordial, welcoming ecosystem and a high standard of etiquette among all staff. The clean, modern pizzeria aesthetic is dressed up in a slightly chic style with 1960s Hollywood actresses lining the walls, their faces ranging from stoic to playful. Sparse, art new deco Italian graphic advertisements compete for the space as well, but cannot outshine the sheer radiance of Sophia Loren’s glistening cheekbones. Though the shoddy, plastic tomatoes that lined the table are a bit tacky, the overall ambiance (supported by the gentle sounds of salsa music like El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico and Marc Anthony) kept visitor expectations as optimistic as can be.

Being an Italian restaurant, Teresa’s is cursed with the affliction of the mandatory margherita pizza, a fixture on the menu of any successful Italian red-sauce joint. Yet servers delivered a dish that was earthy and fresh, as if each ingredient was grown in fertile volcanic soil, bringing its petrichor with it. Also fresh were the restaurant’s two celebrated pasta dishes: balsamico and lumache alla vodka. The former is a fusion of grilled chicken, balsamic vinegar and rigatoni, the product of a chef’s experiments, while the latter consists of the pancetta, lumache and melty grana that make up Teresa’s unique take on vodka sauce. 

The service and hospitality, though not tailored to any single customer’s specifications, had the warmth of a mom-and-pop restaurant with a staff dynamic pulled from sitcoms, featuring chatty, bright-eyed servers and a resolute executive chef barking orders. This dynamic is crucial to keeping Teresa’s running. 

“You actually want to serve everyone on your crew so they feel like you’re not telling them what to do,” Momo said. “You want to be in there with them and have a lot of empathy for their situation.” Though not revolutionary, it is an effective strategy, delivered with enough sincerity and commitment over the years to grow this once small family-owned pizzeria into a Princetonian staple, employing and keeping far more staff than Teresa could ever have imagined. 

In an increasingly trend-focused dining culture, Teresa’s is a local legend. Its simplicity comes with trade-offs: It doesn’t try to innovate in the ways of HeyTea or La La Land Café, but by veering away from the latest niche pick and refining its widely loved classics, the restaurant permits chefs to dabble in Mediterranean twists. 

Resisting the temptation to trendiness is a highlight of Teresa’s. It demonstrates cognizance of their brand and customer base. Their reach is primarily local, and they understand their position in the Princeton dining ecosystem. Teresa’s is a local centerpiece, stringent not about presentation, speediness or exquisite cuisine, but rather the beauty of their craft, inside and outside the kitchen.

At Teresa’s, the Tomato Doesn’t Fall Far From the Vine

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By Aeryn Bautista

Tale padre, tale figlio.

This is Italy’s version of “like father, like son,” a saying that Luke Momo lives by. As the leader of Teresa’s Pizza and Wine Bar, a trattoria nestled in the heart of Princeton, New Jersey, Momo carries on his grandmother’s legacy of serving Italian cuisine at a place that welcomes newcomers and keeps regulars coming back. 

“It is definitely an honor and a privilege, something I enjoy a lot,” Momo said. “I’m so grateful for the staff — incredible staff — we have to execute this vision.”

In the mid 1970s, Teresa Azario and her husband, Raul Momo, established the first Teresa’s Caffé in New York. Their children Raoul, Carlo, Anthony, Caroline and Venanzio, who represent the five spoons in the business logo, expanded it in the following decades to locations throughout New Jersey. 

Luke, Raoul’s son, grew up eating his grandmother’s traditional Italian dishes and visiting diverse eateries alongside his father. These experiences became second nature to him. “It’s sort of like… how the goldfish doesn’t know that they’re in water,” he said, referring to his relationship with food. “It was just so saturated within my experience.”

Teresa’s serves beloved entrées, including margherita pizza, balsamico pasta and shell-shaped lumache alla vodka. At the Palmer Square location, photos of Italian celebrities, such as actress Sophia Loren and director Federico Fellini, line the cool white walls. 

Teresa’s black and white portrait joins them, greeting customers as soon as they enter.

“She has a very big personality,” Momo said. “So we thought it would be a funny joke to put her with all these other movie stars.”

Momo speaks as fondly about his grandmother as he does the trattoria he leads. Although he once pursued filmmaking, he ultimately took up the family restaurant mantle.

Luke shares his grandmother’s dedication to delivering exceptional service to his community and beyond. He encourages his management team to read Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table, a book that emphasizes how cordiality gives way to a thriving restaurant.

“Hospitality is the feeling that you have — a warm and welcome feeling in a restaurant,” he said. “This is the experience we try to give people from the time they walk in to the time that they leave.”

Along with marketing, monitoring customer preferences through food-tasting events and keeping track of finances, Momo is responsible for conducting the “orchestra” of customers and staff in his diner, ensuring that “everyone’s on the same note at the same moment.”

He takes his position as seriously as the king of Ithaca did in The Odyssey.

“The whole thing that Odysseus goes through — I was like, that’s actually somewhat like being a leader,” he said. “Like [director Christopher Nolan] actually accurately showed you really care about all the people who work for you and you’re trying to make sure they’re all doing well.”

Momo’s privy to movies like Nolan’s every day, he argues. They happen “here in this space.” 

“Teresa’s is a great spot for the communal aspect,” he said. “We have the bar — people can come to socialize there, they come to the tables, they bring their friends and family and there’s this magic moment that happens when you seek the whole dining room and you see all these little worlds. They are all little islands unto themselves.”

The kitchen tells its own tale. At its head is Terrance Strong, Teresa’s executive chef. 

“It doesn’t have to be glamorous, but whatever it is, it needs to be consistent,” Strong said. “Because that’s what people are coming here for. They’re coming here for the food.”

Strong conducts a different song than Momo’s, adjusting the tune depending on his staff’s needs. Having worked at Teresa’s for almost three decades, he considers the team a second family.

“You know the old story of [how] you’ve never worked a day in your life, right?” he said, reminiscing on his 28-year career. 

Strong puts honesty, accountability and flexibility at the forefront of his work. From clocking in at 7 a.m. to check equipment and start the dough — the “lifeblood” of the pizzas — to clocking out after a long day of cooking, Strong fosters a positive environment for his junior chefs and customers.

“We’re always trying to put our footprint or fingerprint on the restaurant that we’re currently in,” Strong said. “And we’re always trying to make it better.”

Teresa’s encourages the community to continue enjoying its Italian cuisine while creating their own stories — spending time with lovers, strangers and everyone in between.

“We can’t be great without the greatness of others,” Momo said. “I really think the love and care that our people show for each other, hopefully that speaks to itself and the love that Teresa herself has for giving people good food and a place to enjoy themselves and have a nice time and build those meaningful life moments, meaningful memories.”

DataOne Cools the Servers, but Heats the Debate

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By Audrey Gao

As artificial intelligence (AI) spreads into daily life, so do the buildings that make it possible. 

One of those buildings is DataOne in Vineland, New Jersey. It is currently under construction, set for completion and on track for delivery in December 2026. However, the center is facing backlash over issues such as excessive utility usage. 

Data centers are the industrial backbone of AI. They are facilities packed with servers that store, process and transfer the data behind everything from chatbots to cloud storage. Building one at this large scale means large amounts of electricity, large amounts of water for cooling and, increasingly, large amounts of local pushback. Around 80 data centers across at least 27 municipalities are either operational or soon will be across the state. 

Matt Williams, chairman of a grassroots nonprofit group called Sustain SJ (South Jersey), has spent the past year trying to get straight answers from DataOne, the data center sitting on a 109-acre plot in Cumberland County. 

In the summer of 2025, Williams heard people “talking and murmuring.” “I was a little upset about hearing news of the data center then,” he said. “It was being built at that time already.” 

Since then, the group has grown from a handful of residents in a diner to, by Williams’ count, close to 13,000 followers on Instagram and Facebook combined. “What the group looks like now looks a lot different than what it was then,” said Williams. “We met in a diner, and it was a group of residents, and we were honestly just kind of discussing and learning everything that we’ve learned about the development.”

Williams’ concerns start with the ground underneath the site. The city of Vineland draws its drinking water from the Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer and the DataOne site sits inside a Wellhead Protected Area that shields it. “Any contamination that hits the ground is now our drinking water,” Williams said. 

His second concern is the facility’s power source. Reporting from WHYY shows that the plant is designed to generate 85 percent of its own energy on site, using natural gas piped in from an existing line, with the rest supplied by Vineland Municipal Utilities and Atlantic City Electric. Accounts of the facility’s total output varies: WHYY has described it as a 350-megawatt “hyperscale” facility while the New Jersey Globe reported construction of a 300-megawatt center. Either way, Williams said it dwarfs the city’s own municipal capacity.

DataOne, for its part, presents a different picture of the project. Its Linkedin page describes its technology as “designed to operate in harmony with local environmental and social ecosystems” with “net-zero consumption across water, energy, and air emissions.” DataOne’s CEO, Charles-Antoine Beyney, has made similar arguments to New Jersey reporters, comparing the facility’s emissions to “200 cows” or a “small logistic center from Amazon with 150 trucks” and calling the project “something that is not creating that much disturbance.” He has also said the center plans to pull moisture from the air using waste heat, drawing 20 million gallons a year without touching the aquifer. 

Williams said that kind of reassurance is exactly what Sustain SJ has struggled to get written in stone. “We asked them for two weeks straight, ‘How is the water treated, where is it discharged?’” he said. The response, he said, was never more specific than “we will follow all regulations.” “It’s not an answer in our opinion,” Williams said. “We need a more direct answer.”

He also pointed to a similar pattern in how the project’s power ambitions grew. Beyney told the New Jersey Globe, “The original plan for this AI factory was to build a 50-megawatt one and get the power from the grid. However, as the project got larger, so did our ambitions and we opted for a ‘behind the meter’ strategy, based on gas for a 300-plus megawatt infrastructure.” The sixfold jump from the original pitch is the abrupt pattern Williams said has defined the whole project. 

Sustain SJ has since built a coalition that includes the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, Food & Water Watch and the Pinelands Alliance, along with organizers in Marana, Arizona, who are fighting data centers in a similar capacity. 

Vineland’s planning board is expected to revisit DataOne’s approval on Aug. 5, 2026, the next test of whether a year of organizing changes the outcome. Williams is direct about what he thinks the fight has already accomplished, even if it doesn’t stop the project’s construction. 

“It would have been operational in a more disastrous way,” he said. “Now it’s just less disastrous.”

Can Vineland Advocates Flip the Switch on DataOne?

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By Michael Suman

On the south side of Vineland, New Jersey, the skeleton of a building rises over the aquifer that the city’s 61,000 residents drink from. When it’s finished, it will demand up to 350 megawatts of power. The city that surrounds it has a capacity of 133. 

Once the site of ballfields and a nine-hole golf course, the land was leveled for the construction of DataOne, a 2.6-million-square-foot A.I. data center campus backed by the Amsterdam-based Nebius Group under a $17.4 billion contract to supply computing power to Microsoft. The center is approved, but the conversation is far from over. Vineland resident Matt Williams is working to shut it down. 

One year ago, Williams wouldn’t have known where to start. The chair of Sustain South Jersey, an organization dedicated to responsible development, accountability in local government and environmental stewardship, Williams had previously never read a municipal agenda. Now, he refreshes the Vineland City Council website every morning.

When Williams and his neighbors first saw the construction site, some of them mistook it for a new golf clubhouse. “At one point, it was a golf course that had one event on the property, and then they just leveled it and started building this thing,” Williams said. “They thought it was the start of a clubhouse or something.”

It was not a clubhouse. It was a hyperscale data center, sited on a wellhead protection area above the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer, the groundwater Vineland drinks. “It’s our groundwater. It’s our drinking water,” Williams said. Anything that reaches the ground there, he argues, reaches the water. 

When he and his neighbors brought their questions to a city council meeting in November 2025, they were told they were too late and that they did not understand how government worked. 

In one narrow sense, the council was right. The planning board had signed off on the campus more than a year earlier, and steel was already going up. The group learned the hard way that an agenda item posted one day could disappear the next. 

In December, an item surfaced that was not an approval of anything. It was a $6.2 million loan from the city to the developer, drawn from Vineland’s Urban Enterprise Zone revolving fund to help pay for two cranes that were already standing on the lot. The vote, first set for December 9, was postponed to December 23. 

The delay was meant to cool things off. It did the opposite. “That just gave us two more weeks to get more people,” Williams said. On December 23, the chamber hit fire capacity. The council approved the loan anyway. (The loan offer was later rescinded.)

As time went on, Williams learned just how much the city had invested in the project. More items followed on the agendas: requests for tax abatements, permits, and underneath all of it, the redevelopment overlay that had made the site possible in the first place. 

The overlay, Williams said, let the developer avoid Vineland’s zoning map, clearing a 2.6-million-square-foot campus without the scrutiny that a heavy-industrial site would ordinarily draw. Williams thinks a data center belongs in heavy industry and only as a conditional use, “so people don’t feel like they’re caught off guard.” 

Exhausted by his dealings with the Vineland City Council, Williams turned to other elected officials for help. He emailed Congressman Jeff Van Drew, who had helped stop offshore wind turbines when residents objected. He tried the state legislature and his own mayor as well. 

What he wanted from them was simple: answers about the water.

Last October, the project’s engineers filed a plan to draw up to two million gallons of water a day. Pressed, the developer called it a worst case scenario and said that water would be recycled. New Jersey is under a statewide drought warning. 

DataOne was scheduled to be interviewed for this article but withdrew two days beforehand and declined to comment.

Williams’ work has come at a personal cost. At the same time he was challenging the data center, he was laid off. He knows that he has given his all to a fight he may not win. “It’s a difficult job,” he said. “Weighing the balance of my sense of justice and my sense of responsibility.”

The building stands today, mostly finished, on the south side of town, and the city still hasn’t cast its final vote. A planning board meeting is set for August 5. 

Williams puts his odds at one percent. It’s still higher than zero.

Two Sides of the Same Coin: Princeton’s Independent Businesses Put Customer Service First

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By Ashanty R.

The heartbeat of Princeton started in a U-Store parking lot.

For five years, Barry Weisfield bounced between flea markets and college towns, selling records and vinyl from orange crates in his Chevy van. After rolling into Princeton, his van became a community staple, drawing keen ears to the Princeton University Store.

Always on the road, Weisfield laid his heart on Princeton’s streets and couldn’t leave it behind. In 1980, he parked his roots for good, opening the Princeton Record Exchange Store (PREX) on South Tulane Street, a charming cobblestone path off Nassau Street.

Princeton’s location—neatly between New York and Philadelphia—played a role in his decision, offering prime potential for customers. But it was Weisfield’s devotion to customer service that made PREX stand out. He believed the staff should cater to the community, rather than the other way around.

Unlike big-box retailers, PREX emphasizes connection. Staff aren’t just told to sell records—they’re there to make everyone feel welcome, whether first-timers or long-time collectors. Questions are met with enthusiasm, record requests are taken seriously, and the space is decorated for comfort rather than flash.

When Jon Lambert took over in 2015, after years as general manager and close friend to Weisfield, he kept that ethos while adding his own touches. Inside, handwritten canary-yellow tags label the genres, and DIY record dividers keep the vibe simple and accessible.

Overlapping LCD record covers, Vanity Fair spreads of Randy Newman, Ozzy Osbourne concert posters, and artful band collages give the convenience-store–styled building a lived-in charm.

Lambert’s goal is clear: make people want to stay. And they do.

“You know, if you have a business, they [Google] tell you the average length of stay, for people in that organization, and we’re about an hour,” Lambert says with reserved pride. “I think that really speaks to how much people enjoy being there as an event.”

His attention doesn’t stop at décor or inventory—it extends to his hiring.

“I’m pretty picky about picking,” Lambert jokes. He’s less concerned with stacked resumes in the arts and more focused on personality, lived experiences, and values that align with PREX’s mission: to be courteous, kind, and obliging.

He asks potential hires questions like: “What does integrity mean to you?” “How do you live your life?” and “Is it an internal code of ethics or external?”

Lambert sees his staff as an extension of PREX’s promise to Princeton’s community, even when he’s not there. “Those are the things I care about,” he concludes.

Just around the corner, another independent business echoes that sentiment. Labyrinth Books, co-founded by Virginia Harabin, Pete and Cliff Simms, and the late Dorothea von Moltke, serves as a haven for Princeton’s book lovers.

“It’s a place for travelers, it’s a place for locals,” Harabin says.

Labyrinth intentionally sought a large footprint to serve as both a bookstore and a gathering place—though Harabin admits that decision “might have cost [them] a little something in terms of warmth.” Still, thoughtful touches—a cluster of chairs here, a soft rug there, fairy lights strung from the basement ceiling—create cozy pockets for connection.

“I hope that before too long we’ll be able to do something like put a carpet on this floor,” Harabin reflects. “Maybe a different kind of seating area with some softer chairs. I’m emphasizing change and development.”

Warmth at Labyrinth doesn’t just come from décor, but also from decorum. Like at PREX, the staff help create a hub where curiosity meets enthusiasm. Customers openly approach staff, make requests, and linger for informal conversation.

“Somebody comes in and says, ‘Do you have this?’ I look it up; I don’t have it. But I want to have it. I should have it,” Harabin says. “I’m gonna get one for you, but I’m gonna get one for the store too.”

While one caters to sound and the other to story, Princeton Record Exchange and Labyrinth Books share a philosophy: go beyond inventory and revenue. They resist the transactional coldness of big-box commerce, instead valuing personality, conversation, and time spent.

In a town shaped by prestige and tourism, these independent businesses are grounded in cobblestone charm and built on meaningful exchanges. They are more than local commerce—they are the essence of local care, beating steadily under every path.

A Community Built on Stories 

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By Alya M.

Sonder is the abstract feeling and realization that each person walks around with their own life just as complex and vivid as your own. Through Voices of Princeton, this abstract becomes real. Each story plays as a reminder of how deeply interconnected we really are even as we walk silently past each other. 

The oral history initiative was a result of collaborations between the Princeton Public Library, the Historical Society of Princeton, the Arts Council of Princeton, and the Witherspoon-Jackson Historical and Cultural Society. The goal of the initiative is to collect, save, and store the stories of Princetonians. Princeton is a small town with a population of roughly 30,000, but it is made up of a diverse community with over 50 languages spoken. With the help of Voices of Princeton, all these different people are able to combine their experiences to create culture within the town, strengthening the community.

“When populations from really different backgrounds, different cultural histories, talk together, we become solidly supportive of each other,” said Pamela Wakefield, the inspiration behind Voices of Princeton. Wakefield went on to explain the importance of storytelling when it comes to building a more solid community by allowing people to see each other, not just for who they currently are, but also for who they’ve been and what they’ve experienced. Stories, she emphasized, help uncover the shared humanity beneath our differences, making space for empathy and deeper understanding. In a town like Princeton storytelling becomes not just a form of preservation, but a bridge that connects generations, cultures, and individuals who might otherwise remain strangers. Through Voices of Princeton, that bridge is being built one story at a time.

“I would say that if like in 20 years you have little kids and they say what would it have been like to live here, you can say, let’s listen,” Wakefield said. To her, storytelling is more than memory; it’s a gift we pass on.

Stephanie Schwartz, Curator of Collections and Research at the Historical Society of Princeton, also shared her thoughts on what oral history makes possible. “We’re collecting today for what will become the historic record tomorrow,” she said. Schwartz explained that these stories are valuable not just because of the content, but because of who is telling them and when: “It tells us as much about the person at the time they’re telling the story as it does about the stories they are telling.”

Not everyone feels their voice matters in the bigger picture. “Not everyone thinks their story belongs in history,” Schwartz added. “It’s our job to say: yes, it does.” Voices of Princeton makes that message clear. No one is too new, too quiet, or too ordinary to be remembered.

Cliff Robinson, Public Humanities Specialist at Princeton Public library, reflected that idea. “Just because you’ve been here for a short time doesn’t mean this isn’t your community or that you’re not responsible for it in some way,” he said. In a place like Princeton, where people move in and out often, that reminder matters. Everyone has a place. Everyone contributes to the larger story.

Robinson also spoke about how special it is that the stories are recorded in audio form. “I’ve always been enchanted by the fact that they’re just audio. It requires a different kind of attention—you can close your eyes and just listen.” That kind of listening, quiet and focused, builds a kind of connection. 

Kim Dorman, Community Engagement Coordinator at the Princeton Public Library, added that accessibility is an important part of the project’s mission. “As a public library, we’re making these stories publicly available in a way that’s much more accessible than most oral history projects,” she said. That means anyone in the community or even outside of it can listen to it, learn and reflect. 

Through Voices of Princeton, stories are no longer just something people keep to themselves untold, they become part of something stronger. The initiative is a reminder that history is not made only by the powerful and famous. It’s made by the same people we see everyday. Every person carries a story that matters.

In a town where diversity lives on every block, storytelling becomes not just a form of preservation but a bridge that connects generations, cultures and individuals who might otherwise remain strangers. Through Voices of Princeton, that bridge is built one story at a time.

Hearing Stories from the Voices of Princeton

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By Ipichiesimhe I.

Pam Wakefield, a longtime community member of Princeton, describes what the moments following the devastating terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 felt like. “Everyone gravitated towards Princeton University,” says Wakefield. “Hearing the church bells, funeral after funeral after funeral of people who had died.” 

In that moment, people felt isolated; families were torn apart, businesses closed, and community morale was at an all-time low. Then, more than ever, people needed a means to share how they felt. This feeling of isolation and uncertainty loomed over the busy streets of Princeton, filled with citizens going in and out from work.

Many years later, an initiative was born to capture stories from the community like what unfolded after 9/11. Voices of Princeton stands as a medium for people to share the intimate details to the world that they were too afraid to share with their family.

The journey of creating Voices of Princeton was not a linear one. Wakefield previously proposed the idea to the staff of the Princeton Public Library in 2004, when the library was just being built; however, it did not work out. Still, Wakefield is considered the inspiration: “a part of the Voices of Princeton since before it was born,” says Cliff Robinson, the Princeton Public Library’s Public Humanities Specialist. Originally, Wakefield suggested the idea as a means of expression amongst the various individuals who lived and worked in Princeton. She was previously heavily involved in religious organizations, including as a member of her church community, along with contributing to churches surrounding hers.

It is apparent that Wakefield cares deeply about the program. She cares about her community, the people living in it, and the progress it has made over the years. But she also has a relationship with the city’s main attraction. When asked how the community has affected her life, Wakefield first lists the fact that she “[worked] for the university” and says that her former employer changed her life.

Voices of Princeton is one thing that Wakefield is proud about. She sees how much it’s impacted the lives of the many people around her. Even as the interview was coming to a close, Wakefield urged us to explore the library and the many resources available for us throughout it.

But Wakefield isn’t the only one who cares deeply. Library staff, including the program’s organizers, were interviewed: Cliff Robinson; Kim Dorman, the library’s community engagement coordinator; and Stephanie Schwartz, the Historical Society of Princeton’s curator of collections and research.

Over the years, each organizer contributed to the project in different ways. Their expertise ranged from areas of history to human connection. Schwartz talked about why she appreciated Voices of Princeton so much, stating that she was “really fascinated by the creation of history and what we choose to remember, and how the historical narrative is written.” She also says that “it tells us as much about the person at the time they’re telling the story as it does about the stories they are telling.”

Even though Voices of Princeton is a relatively new program, its effects are still being felt by those sharing their stories, those listening to stories, or those doing the work behind the scenes to ensure that the legacy of the people last.

Nearly New Knows Their History, but They Aren’t Afraid of the Future

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By Diego G.

When faced with that narrow alley off of Nassau Street, I knew I could only go forward.  Walking down the dingy path, bordered by a shady fence of pines and a rust-stained brick wall with protruding window AC units, I could only hope a brighter future would lie ahead. And it did. Mecca was the cyan sign and cartoony butterfly icon that read in white serifed letters: Nearly New Shop.

The chic restaurants, designer boutiques, and the cozy liberal arts institution down the road vanished as I climbed a set of rustic black stairs into the charm of Toni Maher’s fashion haven.  A fluorescent orange door opened with a ring, and Princeton itself took a sigh of relief.

“Thrifting” is somewhat of a recent development, according to Maher.  She states–in subtle Jersey twang, complete with a large brunette blow-out and beaming white smile–that fifteen years ago, many teens would just “turn their nose up at thrifting”.  Things were obviously different now as I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the checkout line. 

Long before then, however, adversity was a cornerstone of Nearly New’s identity.  It was previously owned by the Princeton Day School to fund scholarships for low income students.   Maher, whose 4 children attended PDS, combatted the thought of it closing twelve years ago.  In 2012, she assumed ownership with the mission to serve her community and ensure that–while adding a few disco balls herself–Nearly New was still ultimately Princeton’s.  

With the wisdom of 80 years under her belt, Maher likely wasn’t used to explaining her business model in a curated world of color-coded tags and regulars–all of whom she knew by name–but did so gladly:  “We start from scratch twice a year.  Saturday, our $20 bag day, it empties the store.  I can show you pictures.”

I struggled to imagine the torso-height racks behind me–now teeming with an explosion of color-coded suits, jackets, and t-shirts–desolate.  But every February and August, Princeton showed up for Maher the same way she did for them year-round.  In a city where the average home price borders one million dollars, Maher’s devotion to low prices and local charities (who receive excess clothing) is nothing short of admirable.

She extends most of the credit to her support-system, which includes her husband, who had handcrafted wooden shelves and installed a custom floor, and her daughter, Alexis, who was responsible for their formidable social media presence. (I’d never seen a small business with a Snapchat profile before that day.) Her sons helped set up Square Space, upon noticing the rise of contactless payment.  Say what you want, they were with the times!

That day, customers flooded in and out, gawking at the $5 deal that applied to everything save furs and fine jewelry (the week before, everything was half off, Maher explained).  Even for locals, these sales fostered an infinite sense of excitement.  One regular beamed over a pink pair of peep-toe pumps.  Another perused the aisles with a burgeoning basketful of clothes, which Maher had specifically reserved for her.  

But the only person who benefited more than these women, their wallets, and the newly adopted pieces that day was Emily Battle.  Maher’s right hand woman worked in silence for the duration of our interview, except for the moments when her boss was particularly stumped.  “What’s the most unique thing we sell, hmm…Emily?”  The rugged woman jumped in, her quick, baritone speech bouncing off the walls while recalling memorable days at work and the function of what was apparently an antique lamb chop holder.  Her strong posture was framed by a layer of straight dirty-blonde hair; her tough demeanor concealed a certain kindness I struggled to pinpoint.  And while initially reserved, Battle revealed herself to be much more than just an eager, passionate salesperson.  She credits her job for having, quite literally, changed her life.  

She hopes to serve her community similarly.  Battle recalls a particularly vibrant day when a customer really needed something with a parrot on it.  Luckily, they had just that.  The parrot dress hiding somewhere in Nearly New’s infinite vault had fed them both: the customer with her niche request and Emily, who gained a story and a smile from the experience.

“It’s just a good scene.  I’m in the right place,” she stated decisively.

And that’s what keeps people coming back.  Emily Battle was not the kind of woman with a subscription to Vogue.  Toni Maher did not know that the back-aisle La Perla nightgown was probably worth more than the Chanel shopping bags and 2010 Michael Kors glasses in the display.  People like Maher and Battle aren’t in it for the Gucci watch in the big glass case.  They aren’t glued to their history, however many stories a near century of business may bring.  Their ultimate devotion is to the future of their community, whether that entails new friends or new shop improvements like fresh oak wood floors and Square Space; but they’ll never be without window ACs and your mother’s low-rise jeans.  It was a masterclass in modernization.  Beyond the physical realm, Nearly New is a place of community and kindness in its greatest form: from strangers.  However, beware that purchases may lead to membership in Maher and Battle’s thrifting family.

Before I left, I hesitantly checked out a fashion photography book.  Where I’m from, the unique cover–adorned with a giant, risque leg and blunt description reading LEG–would have never made its way to my local thrift store.  Then also, in my small central California town, buying such a suggestive book might be more embarrassing than buying a 30-pack of adult diapers.

“You got the ‘Leg’ book?” Emily beamed. “That’s so cool!”

As I re-entered the real world of downtown Princeton, my hand slowly let down to proudly display the provocative cover: boldly charismatic, old but new, and quirky.  Just like the Nearly New Shop.  I smiled.  Their work was done.

Honoring Lives through The Potential Project

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By Kateryna S.

Historically, art has often served as a way to portray the personal experience of the artist or the struggle of a community, whether it’s poetry, music or painting. Art is a reflection of the artist’s mind, their values in society, and their sense of the things that require more attention from the public. For Bentrice Jusu, it is about telling the stories of people whose voices would not otherwise be heard — a serious responsibility she took on when starting the Potential Project, which focuses on remembering homicide victims in Trenton, New Jersey, through the eyes of their loved ones using visual art and photography.

In 2016, Jusu stood close to death as she watched 49 people get killed by a gunman in one of Orlando’s nightclubs. Three months after the incident, Jusu lost one of her students who never had a chance to finish his artwork, leaving a big mark on her heart. Those losses led to something bigger, something that connects hundreds of experiences. As part of the Potential Project, Jusu will place yellow squares in significant locations around the city and passersby will be able to see photos and information about the people who are being honored. 

Born and raised in Trenton, Jusu is not only an artist, but also a firefighter, a teacher, a rapper, and a poet. There are many aspects to her talent. I visited one of her main studios where most of the artwork is displayed, which felt like being inside her mind. Unfinished projects, paint, “creative mess,” pictures and music revealed Jusu to be a unique individual from the very first moments. Her love of drawing came from her father who laid the foundation, leading Jusu to where she is today. Jusu is also inspired by many artists and singers, including Carrie Mae Weems, who is a well-known photographer. Through her work, Jusu portrays the experiences of people and engages the local youth, encouraging their talents and potential. 

Using her skills and experience, Jusu raises awareness of important issues and tells the stories of people with very different perspectives. In a small city like Trenton, where everyone is connected, the problem of gun violence became a trauma in a community. In 2021 alone, 21 people were killed in Jusu’s hometown. This is not an uncommon occurrence; gun violence has become normalised across the United States because it became very usual to see homicide happen at schools, nightclubs and other public places. 

In her studio, Jusu cooperates with other artists to interview the families and friends of people who were murdered. As a founder of the Potential Project, Jusu faced the most daunting pushback — from herself. “I was scared,” she says. “’Cause who am I to take these pictures, take these images, and then, you know, illustrate it and then introduce it to people?” Because the project touches on such a sensitive topic and tells the stories of people who were unfortunate enough to lose their lives — people who had so many dreams, potential, and talent — Jusu finds it very difficult mentally. 

Being able to see behind the scenes of the project left me with a lot of emotions and feelings. Each story is unique and different; each individual had something to bring to this world. While the Potential Project’s purpose is to bring attention to the issue and honor the people who died from homicide, putting an end to gun violence is not the responsibility of the artists who engage in the project. One of the participating artists, Hana Sabree, who is also a singer and a close friend of Jusu’s, shared her thoughts about the project and Jusu’s work. “I don’t think it’s Bentrice’s responsibility to bring hope to the city, especially now,” she says. ”Because it could, it continued to happen.” 

In order for art to express the voices of people, their feelings and struggles, it’s extremely important to show the community from a more intimate perspective. Jusu is one of the artists who brings up an important conversation that is often silenced in society. Art connects people in a lot of ways, but each piece is outlining difficulties, hopes and changes. “Mass media does a great job creating films,” she says. “Art work creates a more intimate conversation.” In a small city like Trenton, everybody can see their friend, neighbor, classmate, coworker, or relative in the project. It is not about personal benefit; it is about feeling the need to share the experience and bring the community together.

The Challenges and Resolve of Undocumented Students

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By Gabriela Q.

Gabriela once imagined what it was like to grow up American. Not, of course, in the sense of the picturesque Fourth of Julys, but through living out what she saw on TV: brightly colored lockers and roaring crowds at basketball games, reminiscent of High School Musical.

She quickly learned that this was only a dream. 

For Gabriela, a rising junior at a liberal arts college in Oregon who has chosen to withhold her last name for personal reasons, moving to the United States came with reminders of home. 

“I came to a Latino neighborhood that was very ghetto—there’s a lot of crime, and I thought it felt a little bit like home. I saw people from my country,” she says. 

Maryland, despite its inclusivity, did not feel like home. Back in Guatemala, being a kid felt simple.

“I used to play on the dirt without shoes on the rocks,” she says. When they played soccer, “we used to mark the goals with rocks and sticks,” she says. 

After being told that her family would move to a different country at 13 years old, she left everything she had ever known behind. Her experience isn’t an outlier — it speaks to the challenges undocumented students face in finding community and accessing necessary resources.

Gabriela didn’t enroll in school for over a year upon arriving in the U.S. When she did, she realized there was a blossoming Spanish-speaking community, but she still felt behind. Her English Language Learning (ELL) classes were meant to teach her English, but were taught at a slower pace than most of the other classes at her school. 

A.H., a rising junior at the City University of New York, faced a very different challenge after arriving in the U.S. at 16 years old. In Bangladesh, she was taught to speak English at a very high level in school. But after arriving in the U.S., she felt that because she was undocumented, she was expected to know little to no English. “People would say ‘Oh, your English is so good,’” A.H. says. “It’s a microaggression.”

On the other hand, speaking Bangla, her mother tongue, also led to judgment. “There was a lot of stigma in speaking your second language at high school. It seemed like you were fresh off the boat,” she says. 

A.H., who used a pseudonym for personal reasons, arrived in the U.S. at 16. Unlike Gabriela, she came without her parents. She was accompanied only by her siblings in 2020, two months before the pandemic.

She explains that her brother and sister struggled to make ends meet after they got laid off from their jobs. Due to their immigration status, they weren’t able to access the unemployment benefits that 1 out of every 4 workers in the U.S. took advantage of during the pandemic. 

A.H. and her family weren’t alone. Over 50 percent of the city’s immigrants were unemployed during the pandemic.

Exclusion from resources isn’t rare for undocumented students and families. As states start to revoke in-state tuition waivers meant for undocumented students to cut college costs, many are faced with hurdles to enroll in two- and four-year higher education institutions. 

When Gabriela and A.H. began to apply for college, they faced challenges. For Gabriela, studying for standardized exams made her feel behind in the process. 

“Many exams, like the SAT, were hard to read. I remember that we were asking for extra hours,” she says. “We needed more time.” 

Although A.H. was able to receive a full ride through her honors college, she was unable to apply for internships and work-study programs. Instead, she relied on outside opportunities and wished throughout the process that there were more grassroots support initiatives.

“There is a lack of understanding of how faculty can support students,” she says. “I’m tired of therapy circles; I need actual organizing efforts.”

But what does the American Dream mean if not the opportunity to create a new reality?

For A.H., this came as an opportunity to join local organizing initiatives in New York City, including Desis Rising Up and Moving, a social justice movement centered around providing an outlet for change for South Asian immigrant youth, starting in her junior year of high school. DRUM Beats, the organization’s sister program, was one of various grassroots initiatives leading Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for the city’s democratic mayoral nominee. 

Although Gabriela grew up wanting to be a surgeon, she settled on becoming a social worker after being inspired by her own experiences as an immigrant, feeling that stories like hers can be forgotten.

“When you don’t have any legal records or any case open, you could be gone and nobody would know you existed,” she says. “That’s my fear.” 

Gabriela’s future may not reflect the imagination of her teenage self, but it embraces the identity she has built along the way and the stories of younger generations of undocumented students.

“I know that I have the potential to help people, I have always helped people, and I want to work with them,” she says. “I know that I [can] be an inspiration to other students.”