The barber who founded a D.C. institution has died.
Nurney Mason, who opened Mason’s Barbershop on H Street NE in 1961, died Sunday, his family said. He was 93.
Mason was a military veteran who used his clippers and shears on ordinary Washingtonians and members of Congress for more than 50 years. He retired in 2013 and handed the business over to his son.
Mason was a fixture in the lives of many customers. One regular said Mason cut his hair for 20 years.
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“It’s hard to overstate how powerful Mr. Mason’s legacy is. You can feel him all across the city,” the customer said.
Mason kept his shop open as rioting overtook H Street after the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He described the destruction to News4 in 2018, 50 years later.
“It was sad, very sad. It didn’t look like nothing in America. It looked like something I had seen when I was overseas, to see the buildings burned down like in Germany after the World War,” he said.
Mason’s customers once included former Rep. Charles Rangel, former Rep. John Conyers Jr. and former House Speaker Tip O'Neill, The Washington Post reported.
Mason’s regular customer called the barbershop an oasis that Mason’s son, Robbie Mason, has maintained.
“This is a place of calm. This is a place of peace. And all of the troubles of the outside world, they don’t penetrate Mason’s. That’s the environment that Nurney Mason created and that Robbie is continuing to this day,” he said.
Robbie Mason said he plans to pass on the shop to his children and grandchildren.
“Keep the legacy going, serving the community,” he said.
