Non-destructive entry first, always - and we re-key Schlage, Kwikset, and Baldwin locks on the spot while you watch
You get a price before we start. It does not change when we arrive. No surprises.
Meet the New York Team Behind Novak Lock & Security New York
We’re the crew that shows up when your key snaps in a SoHo storefront at 6 AM or when your new Roosevelt Island co-op needs every cylinder rekeyed before the board inspection. What ties us together isn’t a handbook - it’s that every one of us has had to make a lock work in a building that predates the Depression, and we all know the price we quote is the price you pay. No one here works on commission. No one here changes a number at the door.
Our People
Daniel Novak, Owner
I started this in 2002 with a used Ford Econoline and a bench grinder in the back. Twenty-three years later, I’m still the one who answers when the dispatcher patches through a problem that’s eating up the technician on site. I hold factory authorization on Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, and Abloy - which means I can order restricted keyways and program their high-security cylinders without sending you through the manufacturer’s voicemail tree. I keep a 1948 Yale pin kit on my bench that I restored myself; it’s useless for modern locks, but it reminds me that every mechanism is just pins, springs, and someone who took the time to learn how they talk to each other. When I’m not in the field, I’m usually at the shop in New York, NY checking photo records from the previous day’s jobs - Haven Standard Clause 4: every visit documented, every customer gets the record.
Marcus T., Lead Technician
Marcus has been picking locks since he was fourteen - legally, he likes to add, since he got his first apprenticeship at a hardware store in Flatbush. He’s the one we send when a building superintendent in the Bronx calls saying three tenants can’t get into their units and the property manager is on a plane to Chicago. Marcus carries Level 1 and Level 2 certifications from the Associated Locksmiths of America, and he’s our go-to for safe work: S&G dials, digital locks, the occasional floor safe poured into concrete in a pre-war Chelsea building that no one remembers installing. Off the clock, he restores vintage motorcycles and applies the same patience to a seized 1972 Honda crankcase that he does to a mortise lock packed with eighty years of paint. Customers ask for him by name. We don’t blame them.
Elena R., Senior Installer
Elena joined us in 2019 after six years running commercial installs for a security firm in Queens that kept “forgetting” to pull permits. She doesn’t forget permits. She knows the NYC Department of Buildings filing requirements for exit devices on commercial occupancies, which means when we install a panic bar on a restaurant in the East Village, the inspection passes the first time. Her specialty is access control integration - wiring strikes, maglocks, and biometric readers into buildings where the conduit was installed during the Reagan administration and the superintendent doesn’t have a blueprint. She speaks Spanish with our Washington Heights and Inwood customers without making a production of it, and she keeps a running list of every building in New York, NY where she’s had to fabricate a custom strike plate because the frame is cast iron and nothing standard fits. In her second life, she’s a competitive powerlifter. She does not struggle with heavy doors.
James K., Service Coordinator
James is the voice you hear when you call (551) 214-0800 at 2 AM because your key won’t turn and your dog is inside. He’s been with us since 2017, and he’s never once put a customer into a voicemail queue - Haven Standard Clause 2: live answer, every hour, every day. Before he coordinates our technicians, he spent four years as a locksmith in Newark, so when you describe what’s happening with your lock, he actually knows what you’re talking about. He schedules the appointments, quotes the firm price that the technician is bound to, and follows up after every job to make sure the photo record landed in your inbox. He also knows every bodega in New York, NY that makes a decent egg sandwich before 6 AM, which matters more than you’d think when you’re dispatching a crew across five boroughs on four hours of sleep.
Devon P., Apprentice
Devon’s been with us eight months, which in locksmith years means he’s past the “don’t touch the customer’s car door” stage and into the “rekey this Kwikset without mixing up the pins” stage. He’s working toward his ALOA certification while shadowing Marcus on commercial jobs and Elena on access control rough-ins. He grew up in Bed-Stuy, and he’s already developed a reputation for calming down locked-out customers who are more embarrassed than desperate - a skill you can’t teach. Last month he spent three hours in a Crown Heights basement learning how to decode a lock that had been master-keyed so many times the original bitting was a rumor. He took notes the whole time. That’s why we hired him.
One Standard, Every Job
The Haven Standard isn’t a poster on the wall. It’s twelve clauses, numbered, that govern how we work from the first ring to the final photo record. Clause 1 is the one customers mention back to us: the price on the phone is the price on the invoice, and the technician cannot change it. That rule has been in place since 2002, and it’s why we still have customers from our first year who call us for their third apartment and their second business. Every technician on this page is background-checked, uniformed, and trained to the same documentation protocol - photo record, written scope, written warranty - whether we’re rekeying a single cylinder in a Murray Hill studio or installing a full Medeco key control system across a Midtown office tower. We don’t do urgency theater. We don’t do bait-and-switch. We do locks, keys, and access control in New York, NY, and we put the price in writing before we start because that’s what we promised.
Written by Daniel Novak, Owner at Novak Lock & Security New York, serving New York, NY since 2002.