BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC | When it comes to news stories about mom-and-pop stores, it’s usually about them closing due to astronomical rent hikes. But two longtime, family-owned hardware stores are not just surviving — they are thriving.
“There’s hope. Not every business in this city is going to close,” Nathaniel Garber Schoen told Chelsea Now.
Schoen recently spearheaded a second location in Chelsea for his family’s business — Garber Hardware — at 207A Ninth Ave. Located between W. 22nd and W. 23rd Sts., the new store took over what was once home to Alan’s Alley Video.
Nathan Garber and his father started dealing in hardware goods — likely out of a pushcart — and established the business in 1884, Schoen explained. For 100 years, Garber Hardware was located at 49 Eighth Ave. at Horatio St. in the West Village, he said.
In 2003, the store moved to its current location at 710 Greenwich St. because “it was time,” Schoen said. “It was about long-term success.”
He explained that you think about a longtime business differently — you have to consider how the sixth generation will run it. The 2003 move gave Schoen both the experience and confidence to scout for another location.
“A second store is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” he said.
Schoen had considered a location in Jersey City five years ago, but ultimately decided to pass. A regular recipient of flyers from real estate brokers, he saw the listing for the space on Ninth Ave. in Chelsea and was attracted to the spot due to its size, location, and potential.
Garber Hardware’s second location opened toward the end of July, the beginning of August, Schoen said.
Schoen spent weekends and summers while he was growing up at the West Village store, which his father and uncle currently run, he said.
“We all have a hand in just about everything,” he noted, referring to the members of his family. Schoen’s, cousin Jeff Sinsley, helped him set up the new Chelsea location.
The two stores differ in size (the West Village location is three times the about 2,000-square-foot Chelsea one), but both pride themselves on having a wide selection of products — tools, paint and painting supplies, housewares, nuts and bolts, among other things.
“We’ve always been a bit more — the kind of stuff you can find here,” said Schoen, who says he spends a lot of time thinking about products for the store.
Garber Hardware also has horseshoes, growlers for beer, shaving kits with a selection of old-school brushes, and a singular selection of books — including titles like “The Maker’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse,” “Junkyard Jam Band: DIY Musical Instruments and Noisemakers,” and “The Manga Guide to Electricity.”
“When you know you have quality stuff, it’s easy to sell,” he said.
West Village regulars, like Lino Ahston and Roland Lahe, came into the store to get keys made. Ahston told Chelsea Now they had recently moved to neighborhood.
“It has everything we need,” Ahston said. “And there’s a puppy.”
Indeed, the dog, Kang the Conqueror, had his own throne — an orange pad emblazoned with “Hardware Dog,” and has his own Instagram account: @Kang_theconqueror.
While there is no rambunctious dog at Kove Brothers Hardware, there is a similar tale of several generations working to make the business a success.
A tailor by trade, Sam Kove decided to open a hardware store at 189 Seventh Ave. (at W. 21st St.) in 1920, his grandson, Mark Berger, explained to Chelsea Now on a Thursday afternoon at the store.
It isn’t clear what spurred the decision, but somehow he learned the business, Berger said. After renting for 20 years, Kove bought the building in 1940, and the business was incorporated in 1946, he said.
The family still owns the building where the approximately 1,800-square-foot hardware store is housed, as well as a second floor of offices.
After Mark’s father, Aaron Berger, came out of the army, he started working in the store in the 1950s, he said (Lee Kove is Mark Berger’s mother and Sam Kove’s daughter).
“My grandfather brought him in the business,” he explained.
Aaron Berger was trained as an accountant, but he picked up the business, he said. Mark Berger spent a lot of time at the store when he was growing up.
“I used to work summers,” said Berger. “I like hardware. I just like working with tools and taking things apart. I like building [things].”
Customers bring items to the store for repair, such as lamps, and sometimes even necklaces — Berger unfurled a wrapped one to show Chelsea Now.
“We fix all kinds of stuff,” he said. “We try to help people out.”
In the 1950s and ’60s, the store catered mostly to commercial needs, and stocked products such as dyes, oil, belts, and industrial cleaning supplies, he said. Berger said he remembers a time when kerosene, which was used to clean machinery, was sold by the gallon and nails were sold by the pound.
“Little by little, the neighborhood started changing — more residential,” he said.
Now the brimming store has more household items and choices.
For example, there were “only two types of bulbs: regular, incandescent, and then the fluorescent bulbs. That was it,” Berger said. “Now, there are 100 different types of bulbs you have to stock.”
Berger said his business is 70% commercial and 30% retail — and attributes this to the lasting power of the business.
“I think it’s because we have the commercial — that keeps you going no matter what,” he said. “It’s a good balance.”
After Aaron Berger retired in 1992, both Mark and his brother, Barry, were in charge of the store, he said. Barry Berger runs the 9,000-square-foot warehouse in Secaucus, New Jersey.
Kove Hardware also delivers to building superintendents throughout Manhattan, and some parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx, Berger said, providing janitorial, plumbing, and electrical supplies, as well as tools, light bulbs, garbage bags, shovels, and salt.
At the packed Chelsea store, customers will find what they need, and if not, “we can get anything in a day for people,” he said.
Berger said he loves the neighborhood, and has longtime customers as well as employees.
“People in the neighborhood are really great,” said Berger, noting they have chain fatigue of banks and Duane Reades. “They come in and say, ‘We hope you never move.’ ”
For more information, visit kovebrothers.nyc and garberhardware.com.
