About
A locksmith with an address
Gantry Locksmith works out of a storefront on Vernon Blvd in Long Island City, a few blocks from the park we are named after. You can walk in, look at hardware, get a key cut, and see the licence on the wall.
That matters more in this trade than in most. A great many locksmith listings in New York are a phone number and a subcontractor — no premises, no accountability, and nowhere to go when a job goes wrong. Having somewhere you can come back to changes how a business behaves.
Gantry Plaza · 1925 & 1928
The name
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. Before there was a freight tunnel, goods bound for Manhattan had to cross the East River by water — so these structures lifted hundred-ton rail cars off the tracks and lowered them onto flat-bottomed barges, eighteen feet up or down, all day.
They worked until 1957. Containerisation moved the freight to trucks, the North Shore branch went quiet, and the gantries stood abandoned on the waterfront for four decades while everyone assumed they would eventually come down.
In 1998 they were restored instead and made the centrepiece of the park. They are the most recognisable thing in Long Island City, and New York State's own listing puts them squarely here rather than in some vaguer "Queens waterfront".
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 rather than from a call centre that has never seen it.
How we work
Six rules you can hold us to
Not adjectives. Specific commitments, each one of which you would notice us breaking.
We pick before we drill
Non-destructive entry is attempted on every job. Drilling sells a replacement cylinder, which is exactly why so many operators reach for it first. If a lock genuinely cannot be bypassed you hear that, and the replacement cost, before anything happens.
The price goes on the website
Full ranges for every job we do, published before you call. A range on the phone, the exact number confirmed at your door, and no work started on a figure you have not agreed to.
We say the real ETA
If we are on a job and it will be forty minutes, we say forty minutes. A locksmith who promises fifteen and arrives in fifty has cost you the thirty-five minutes you would have spent calling someone else.
We tell you when you do not need us
A stiff lock is usually a misaligned door, not a failing cylinder — a cheaper repair than the replacement you would otherwise be sold. A building common-door lockout is usually management's problem, not a locksmith call. We will say so.
We check that it is yours
Proof of residency for a door, registration and photo ID for a car key. A locksmith who does not check is a locksmith who will open your door for someone else, and that check protects you far more than it protects us.
We only claim the areas we can reach
Six neighbourhoods, each with an honest time range. We are not going to appear in search results for a part of Brooklyn we would take fifty minutes to reach.
The storefront
What a counter is actually for
Small jobs stay small. A mailbox key, a padlock copy, a suitcase key — none of those are worth a callout, and all of them take four minutes at a counter for a few dollars.
You can see hardware before you buy it. The difference between a Grade 3 and a Grade 1 deadbolt is obvious in your hand and invisible in a product photo.
And you can look someone in the eye before handing them keys to your home. That is not a small thing in an industry where most of the competition has no address at all.
Find us
47-15 Vernon Blvd, Long Island City, NY 11101
- Emergency dispatch
- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- Monday – Friday
- 8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
- Saturday
- 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
- Sunday
- Emergency dispatch only
- Typical response in LIC
- 15–30 minutes
Want to check us out first? Here is how to verify any locksmith, including this one.
Talk to a locksmith, not a call centre
Locked out, or planning ahead?
One call gets you a real price range and an honest ETA. 15–30 minutes is typical across Long Island City.
Counter: 47-15 Vernon Blvd, Long Island City, NY 11101 · Dispatch: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week