Award Locksmith & Hardware sits on E 96th St in New York, and the door never really closes, because the shop runs 24 hours a day, every day of the week. That's not a small detail. Locks don't pick a good time to fail. A key snaps off in the cylinder at midnight, a deadbolt seizes up right as you're heading out for an early shift, or a storefront gate jams shut before a delivery is supposed to arrive. Most locksmiths keep daytime hours and make you wait. This one doesn't work that way. Being open around the clock means someone is behind the counter no matter when the problem shows up, which changes how people in the neighborhood think about lock trouble. It stops being an emergency you have to plan around and becomes something you can just walk in and deal with.
Most people who walk through the door aren't dealing with a crisis. They need key copying or key cutting, and that's by far the most common reason reviewers mention the shop at all. It's the simple, recurring job that keeps the counter busy, a new tenant getting copies made for roommates, a parent cutting a spare for a kid, a landlord replacing a set that walked off with a previous renter. But the work goes beyond cutting blanks. Lock change requests come up when old hardware finally gives out or when someone wants to upgrade security after moving in. Deadbolt repair and general door repair show up often too, usually when a lock has gotten stiff, misaligned, or stopped throwing the bolt cleanly, which is usually a sign the door itself has shifted slightly over time.
A good chunk of the work here has nothing to do with locks directly and everything to do with getting the right physical part. Reviewers specifically bring up screw selection, which sounds minor until you're standing in front of a hardware wall with a stripped screw from a hinge made decades ago. Getting the right brand and size matters more than people expect, especially on older New York buildings where doors, frames, and hardware don't always match the stuff sold at a big box store. A shop that's also a hardware store can match an odd thread pitch or an obsolete strike plate in a way a locksmith who only carries a generic van kit can't. That kind of hands-on matching, done by someone who actually knows the inventory, is the kind of detail that keeps people coming back for small stuff.
Lockouts don't follow a schedule, and this is where the round the clock hours stop being a nice feature and start being the whole point. Someone locked out of their apartment at 3am because a lock stuck or a key bent isn't in a position to wait until a shop opens at nine. Same goes for a business owner who's lost the keys to a storefront gate before a morning delivery, or someone who left their keys inside and the deadbolt's thrown. The shop treats a call at 2am the same way it treats one at 2pm. That consistency matters more for lockouts than almost any other service, because the whole problem is about being stuck right now, not on a schedule that works for somebody else.
Rekeying is its own kind of job, separate from a straight lock change. It's for people who want one key to work across a mix of old and new hardware, which comes up a lot after someone changes one lock but doesn't want to carry two different keys for the front door and the back. It's also common after a move, when a new resident wants the old tenant's key to stop working without replacing every lock in the place. Rekeying resets the internal pins so a new key pattern works while the hardware itself stays put, which is usually cheaper and faster than swapping out the whole lock. Beyond that, the shop also handles safes, for anyone who's outgrown a drawer lock or a lockbox and wants something built to actually resist being forced or carried off.
The combination of service and hardware know-how seems to be what sticks with people. Reviewers describe the staff as kind, which matters more than it sounds like when you're standing there frustrated because a key won't turn or a bolt won't throw. Product selection gets called out too, which lines up with the screw and brand matching mentioned earlier. A few reviews bring up store hours, though that's a strange thing to question here, the shop is open all day and all night, every day, so there isn't really a closing time to ask about. If anything those mentions point to people checking out of habit, not realizing the schedule doesn't apply the way it would at a typical hardware store.
Taken together, the shop covers a wide range without losing the small, specific stuff that keeps a neighborhood hardware counter useful. Someone can walk in for a basic key copying job and walk out having also gotten advice on the right screw for a loose hinge. Someone else can call at an odd hour because a lockout turned their night upside down and get treated like any other customer. Add in deadbolt repair, lock changes, rekeying, and safes, and it covers most of what comes up with locks and doors in a city full of old buildings and mismatched hardware. The throughline isn't one flashy service, it's steady availability paired with people who know the actual parts well enough to help you fix the small stuff too.