Baldwin’s City of New Jersey

To mark his 100th birthday, we present a series of five essays inspired by James Baldwin's year in New Jersey.

From Harlem’s Native Son to New Jersey's Invisible Man

Writer L. Lo Sontag kicks off the essay series when Baldwin had his mental break(through) in a fine dining establishment in Trenton.

#THECITYOFNEWJERSEY

JAB Fair 2025 Call for Exhibitors

Dense Magazine is pleased to announce the third annual Jersey Art Book Fair, with over 150 exhibitors coming to Jersey City February 21-23,

#JERSEYALLALONG

Jersey Art Book Fair is coming!

Dense Magazine is pleased to announce the first-ever Jersey Art Book Fair, with over 60 exhibitors coming to Jersey City Jan 28–29, 2023.

#LIVINGARCHIVE

The Autobahn, Jersey Style

Co-founder Petia Morozov serves up a plateful of unlikely connections between the Autobahn and the NJ Turnpike, in the “World of Tomorrow.”

#WESHAPEENVIRONMENTSSHAPEUS

In the Circle of Sound

In Issue 1, University of Orange offers up their antidote to speeding past and around America’s Main Streets, and it’s music to our ears.

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Getting Dense with Gabrielle Esperdy

Author and architectural historian Gabrielle Esperdy gives us her first-person account why New Jersey is one very complicated place to love.

#SENSINGTHEFUTURE

Wading through the Future of New Jersey

SPURSE cofounder Iain Kerr brings us on location where their Issue 1 sci-fi story, “2021–2051” takes place, under the New Jersey Turnpike.

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You from Jersey? What ecology?

Designers/educators Brian McGrath and Tommy CheeMou Yang walks us through Issue 1’s pattern book, and why we have central Jersey all wrong.

#GETTINGDENSE

Getting Dense with Susan Yelavich

Design scholar and critic Susan Yelavich joins us to chat about her Jersey roots, her love of mystery film and "quaking” up on the Turnpike.

#JERSEYALLALONG

Lore of the Turnpike

From The Sopranos to artist Tony Smith, design scholar Susan Yelavich maps the Turnpike as a culture-shifting behemoth in Issue 1.

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The Turnpike's Failure Is Our Cover

In 1988, videographer Don Bull captured a beautiful failure of the NJ Turnpike. Thanks to the magic of time, it now lives on as our cover.

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5049 Miles on the Turnpike

Editor Gretchen Von Koenig considers the everyday design of rest stops and their power to distribute assumptions about people and place.

#SENSINGTHEFUTURE

Smells like Jersey Spirit

Co-founder Petia Morozov unfolds our NJ Turnpike Scratch N Sniff Map, celebrating two hundred years after the 1951 Turnpike debut.

Photo of Dense Issue 1, placed on a table in a diner booth in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Plaza Diner

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Tangents about design and New Jersey

Booth, Please is our online platform for bold stories, strange tangents, and surprising conversations about design and New Jersey.

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