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GantryLocksmith

Open now · Long Island City · Queens

Locked out in
Long Island City?

We dispatch from a storefront in Long Island City — not a call centre in another state. Typically 15–30 minutes to your door, any hour, with the price agreed before we start.

Request a locksmith

Describing the lock and the door gets you a firm price — and means the van arrives with the right part on board instead of making a second trip.

Dispatch
24/7, every day
Entry
Picked first, drilled last
Storefront
A real counter in LIC
Pricing
Published, not quoted at the door

Installation · lever sets and deadbolts

A satin-nickel lockset fitted to a deep green door — escutcheon, key cylinder and lever on the face, with the latch and deadbolt visible on the open door edge.

A lock is only as good as the door it hangs on. We set the bolt to the strike rather than the other way round — a deadbolt that needs a shoulder behind it to throw is a deadbolt that is not locked.

Rekeying · restricted profiles

A bunch of keys fanned out on a dark surface, photographed close enough that the individual cut teeth along each blade are clearly visible.

A key stamped DO NOT DUPLICATE is a request. A patented profile with a milled side channel is a mechanism — the blanks are controlled, so nobody copies your key without your say-so.

Gantry Plaza · est. 1925

The two historic gantries at Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City, each carrying the orange LONG ISLAND lettering, with the East River and the LIC towers behind.

Two transfer bridges that lifted rail cars onto barges across the East River. Built 1925 and 1928, worked until 1957, restored in 1998. Still standing on the LIC waterfront.

Emergency dispatch is open right now. 15–30 minutes typical across LIC.

Long Island City, NY · QueensCounter hours

Seven things, done properly

Emergency work around the clock, planned work booked at your convenience. Every price below is a real starting point, not a hook.

All services

The part nobody else publishes

Our prices are on the website.

The loudest complaint about this trade is the $19 quote that becomes $350 once the technician is standing in your hallway. The simplest way to prove we do not work that way is to put the numbers where you can read them before you call.

See the full price list
  1. 01

    A number before we dispatch

    Describe the door and you get a range before we dispatch. Not "our tech will assess" — an actual number.

  2. 02

    Confirmed at the door

    The tech looks at the real lock and confirms the price before any tool comes out of the bag.

  3. 03

    Changes get re-agreed

    If what we find differs from what you described, you hear the new number and you decide. Work never starts on a quote you have not agreed to.

  4. 04

    Walk away free

    If the confirmed price is higher than you expected and you would rather not proceed, you owe us nothing.

Six neighbourhoods, honest minutes

We list the areas we can genuinely reach fast from our Long Island City counter, and no more. A locksmith who turns up forty minutes after the window they promised is worse than one who told you to call somebody closer.

Street map of Long Island City and the surrounding neighbourhoods Gantry Locksmith covers: Hunters Point, Court Square, Dutch Kills, Sunnyside, Astoria, Greenpoint.Hunters Point15–25mCourt Square15–28mDutch Kills18–30mSunnyside20–32mAstoria20–35mGreenpoint22–38m
Arrival windows are door-to-door from our Long Island City counter, in normal traffic.Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · © CARTO

How a job goes, start to finish

No part of this should be a surprise. If a locksmith will not walk you through it in this much detail, that itself is information.

  1. Step 01

    You send a message

    A person reads it — not a dispatcher three states away working from a script. Describe the door and you get a price range in the message.

  2. Step 02

    We give an honest ETA

    15–30 minutes is typical inside Long Island City. If we are on a job and it will be longer, we say the longer number.

  3. Step 03

    Price confirmed at the door

    The tech looks at the actual lock and confirms the cost before any tool comes out of the bag.

  4. Step 04

    Non-destructive entry

    We pick, bypass or shim wherever the lock allows it, so you keep the hardware you already own.

  5. Step 05

    You are in, and the lock still works

    We test the lock with you before leaving. If the cylinder was already failing, you will hear that too.

Every claim here, you can check

This trade has a genuine trust problem, and telling you we are trustworthy does nothing about it. So instead: here are the things you can independently verify before you let anyone near your door.

  • A licence number you can look up

    NYC requires locksmiths to hold a DCWP licence and to display the number on their advertising. Ask any locksmith for theirs — including us — and check it against the City's own public lookup before you let them near your door.

  • An address that exists

    A storefront in Long Island City you can walk into. Many locksmith listings are mail drops or map pins on residential buildings — put any address into Street View before you call it.

  • Prices published in advance

    Full ranges for every job on the pricing page, and the rule that no work starts on a number you have not agreed to.

  • We ask you to prove it is yours

    A locksmith who opens doors without verifying authorisation is a burglary service. The check protects you far more than it protects us.

How to vet any locksmith

Starting prices

Real ranges for the seven things we do. The exact number is confirmed at your door before any tool comes out of the bag.

Emergency Lockout Service
$89 – $185
Lock Rekeying
$35 – $65
Lock Installation & Repair
$145 – $285
Commercial Locksmith Service
$220 – $1,400
Car Key Replacement & Auto Locksmith
$145 – $375
Safe Opening & Installation
$175 – $450
Key Cutting & Duplication
$3 – $85
Full price list, every job

Why we are called Gantry

Named for two machines that are still standing

The gantries in Gantry Plaza State Park are Long Island Rail Road transfer bridges, built in 1925 and 1928. They lifted hundred-ton rail cars onto flat-bottomed barges to cross the East River, because there was no freight tunnel and the goods had to reach Manhattan somehow.

They worked until 1957. Then containerisation arrived, freight moved to trucks, and they stood abandoned on the waterfront for forty years while everyone waited for someone to pull them down. In 1998 they were restored instead, and made the centrepiece of the park.

We took the name because it is the right one for this trade. Precision machinery, built properly, still doing its job a century later — and unmistakably from this neighbourhood.

About Gantry Locksmith

Questions worth asking

Of us, and of any other locksmith you are considering.

All questions
How fast can you actually get to me?
Typically 15 to 30 minutes across Long Island City, because we dispatch from a storefront in Long Island City rather than from a call centre. Hunters Point and Court Square are usually at the fast end; Astoria and Greenpoint run longer. We will not quote you anything under 15 minutes — that number is not achievable door-to-door in Queens, and a locksmith who promises it is simply planning to break it.
Why is it a range instead of a fixed price?
Because two jobs on the same street can genuinely differ. A standard cylinder on a wooden apartment door is one job; a high-security cylinder on a reinforced door with a secondary drop bar is another. What does not vary is the sequence: a range before we dispatch, the exact number confirmed at the door, and no work started until you have agreed to it.
How do I check a locksmith's DCWP licence?
New York City requires every locksmith to hold a licence from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP, formerly DCA) and to display that number on their advertising. Ask for the number before anyone touches your door and check it against the City's free public lookup — confirm the licensed name matches the business you called and that the status is active rather than expired or revoked. Apply that to us as readily as to anyone else.
Will you damage my lock getting me in?
Almost never. We attempt non-destructive entry — picking, bypassing or shimming — on every job, and most standard residential and office cylinders open that way. Drilling is a last resort, and you hear about it before it happens along with what the replacement cylinder costs.
Should I rekey or replace my locks?
Rekey unless the hardware is worn out or the wrong grade for the door. Rekeying changes the pins inside the lock you already own so the old key stops working — identical security outcome to replacing, at a fraction of the cost. Anyone insisting a sound, decent-grade lock must be replaced is selling hardware rather than solving your problem.

Talk to a locksmith, not a call centre

One message. A real price. An honest ETA.

15–30 minutes is typical across Long Island City. Dispatch is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

15–30min
typical door-to-door in LIC
24/7
dispatch, every day of the year

Long Island City, NY · Dispatch: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Every enquiry

Request a locksmith

For lockouts, planned work and commercial jobs alike. The more you can say about the lock and the door, the more exact the range you get back.

  1. 1A person reads it and replies with a real price range and an honest ETA.
  2. 2The exact number is agreed at your door before any tool comes out.
  3. 3If it is more than you want to spend, you send us away owing nothing.

Dispatch reads every request, 24 hours a day — say it is urgent and it is treated as urgent. Non-emergency enquiries get a reply during counter hours. Your details are used to answer your enquiry and nothing else — see our privacy notice.

Request a locksmith