Brick City is Newark's nickname. Were you aware of that?

Maybe Ryan or Marie will weigh in here now. I see one of them just created an account called folk engineered.

It's true that the custom market is building, and not just in bicycles. There's a huge upsurge in artisanal farming, cooking, sewing, etc, too. I guess people are fed up with mass produced, mass marketed stuff. Ryan confirmed this with me, from his perspective. And it so happens that Marie and Ryan worked a farm for a year in New York State's Hudson Valley where chefs go for training and end up staying. Now the Hudson Valley is full of great restaurants, all in the most incredible rural scenery.

I think I ought to take pictures outside and inside their building. It's all gritty but somehow compellingly beautiful. They have tons (literally!) of industrial equipment from various trades. Some of it is merely abandoned, and some they have brought in. Ryan told me the story of one of his giant workbenches. He offered to buy the gorgeous giant vise on it, and the seller threw in the bench that the vise was attached to.