Over the years, a who’s who of New York rabbanim walked through these doors. “Back before my time, Gottlieb’s used to host sheva brachos, and many rebbes – including the Satmar, Pupa, and Spinke Rebbes came in. In fact, so did police commissioners and even cabinet secretaries.”
A typical day begins at ten, when the chef arrives for prep, with doors opening at noon. Lunch runs straight into dinner until 10 p.m., though the staff often stays until eleven. The most popular dish on the menu is still the pastrami sandwich, and like they say, you don’t have to be Jewish to love rye bread. Gottlieb’s is also a popular venue for the non-Jewish residents of the gentrified parts of the neighborhood, who come in for a pastrami on rye or matzah ball soup.
So iconic was the diner under the leadership of Reb Shulem Yosef, that President Trump was scheduled to visit the shop last September on his campaign trail, as a nod to the Williamsburg community. Secret Service agents had already scoped out the restaurant to ensure it would meet security protocols, but unfortunately, the plan was cut short by Shulem Yosef’s sudden passing just hours before the planned visit.
Over the past 60-plus years, the biggest change has been the ultimate eatery modern convenience: People can place orders on their website for pickup or delivery. Still, an elderly man at one of the tables makes sure to qualify that “The quality is completely the same as the day it opened – I can vouch for that.”

The Everything Place

Walking into Tiv Tov Hardware is like stepping into a Williamsburg attic, where time stopped in 1946 and never restarted. The walls are jammed with clocks that can’t agree on the hour, calculators that survived Y2K, and bins of toys, lightbulbs, and random gizmos you didn’t know still existed. Overhead, a plastic parrot keeps watch, while shelves groan with everything from succah decorations to rubber chickens.
The store has been around for nearly 80 years, and today it’s still run by two old-time “shutfim,” partners Shmiel and Shea. Shmiel explains that his father was one of the original owners. Over time, his father expanded to two more branches in Boro Park, but when age caught up with him, he sold those locations and went back to work in the original Williamsburg store until retiring.
After his father was niftar, Shmiel took over his part of the partnership. “This place is exactly how it was seventy years ago,” he says. “Same ceiling, same floors. We don’t decorate — it’s a waste of money.”
That old-school charm is what makes Tiv Tov stand out. They still carry items you’d swear don’t exist anymore. Customers often walk in, stunned, saying, “We didn’t think anyone still sold these, but of course Tiv Tov has them!”
Not everything stays the same, though. Shmiel points out how tastes have changed. “We used to sell stacks of beach chairs all summer long, but they’re no longer in demand since bungalow colonies provide them.”
On one of the walls hangs a large street sign, “Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum Place,” the honorary name for Keap Street. Shmiel says that Shea once spotted it lying crooked on the ground, probably blown down by the wind. “He couldn’t just leave it there, so he picked it up and brought it here. Now it hangs in the store like a trophy.”
Business is seasonal. In Tishrei, knives fly off the shelves, in accordance with the minhag of buying a new knife for Rosh Hashanah. Come Succos, it’s decorations and succah hardware. Chanukah brings candles, Purim brings shtick, and the cycle goes on. Summer is the store’s quietest time, since half the neighborhood disappears to the mountains.
They also sell items that uniquely cater to their Williamsburg clientele.
Toy school buses, for example, with real Williamsburg chadarim and school names printed on the side. And keychains with Casio watches for campers to hang on their belt loops, as many chassidish camps don’t allow campers to wear those watches on their wrists.
“We’re not just a hardware store. We’re an everything store,” says Shmiel. It’s true — the shelves are packed with everything from Bosch mixers to postal stamps. If Tiv Tov doesn’t carry it, chances are it hasn’t been made since Eisenhower was president.

Key to the Heart

An old blue sign hangs above the door of Arrow Locksmiths, with the name painted in gilded gold letters across the window. It’s classic, not flashy — focused on getting the job done — a hint to what this business on Clifton Avenue in the heart of old Lakewood is all about.
Inside, owner Hershey Tomar cuts keys with steady precision. His experienced eyes stay locked on his work, his hand occasionally stroking his grizzled beard. He knows exactly what he’s doing — after all, he’s been a locksmith in this very shop since 1979.
Originally from Boro Park, Hershey says he entered the trade when it came time for him and his friends to leave full-time kollel and pursue parnassah. Many enrolled at COPE to become computer programmers, but when he realized that meant sitting in front of a screen all day, he hesitated.
“I can’t sit in a chair too long. I’m not a chair person,” he says.
As it happened, COPE was launching a new course — locksmithing. The rest was history. He purchased a security shop in Lakewood that had been around since 1942, owned by a fellow named John the Locksmith who also dealt with safes and whatever was available in home and industrial security at the time.
Hershey says he chose the name “Arrow” so that his business could be first in the Yellow Pages listings. In the early days, while still learning in BMG, he didn’t just work in the store. “I had a mail truck. I painted it bright green and used to cut keys every Thursday night.”
Just a few weeks ago, someone called to ask if he still offered that service — 45 years later. While the business today deals with all aspects of both home and industrial security, selling safes, video surveillance equipment, and all types of break-in preventing locks, there is also an entire wall filled with keys — of every type and for every lock and car model. In fact, says Hershey, they have the largest inventory of keys in the entire tristate area. And if you lose every spare key to your car, they’ll come over and cut you a new one.
Arrow Locksmiths is one of the oldest and most iconic stores in Lakewood, a true community landmark. Over the years, Hershey would often meet with Lakewood mashgiach Rav Nosson Wachtfogel, who would always ask, “Nu Hershey, du hust geffunen dem shlissel tzum lev [Did you find the key to the heart]?” For years, Hershey had no answer, until one day he replied, “Yes! Torah and tefillah, as it says, Hu yiftach libeinu b’Soraso.” Rav Nosson smiled, appreciating the answer. “We met many times after that,” Hershey says, “and he never asked me again.”
The business has evolved with the times. Most cars today have smart keys, and customers prefer to replace locks rather than repair them — a shift in mentality, especially among the younger generation. Tomar’s son Chesky runs the store today, a young face for modern consumers looking for enhanced security solutions.
Aside from the massive wall of keys, their most popular item is the Shabbos combination lock, and customers also appreciate the large selection of gorgeous doorknobs and other decorative hardware.
But longtime customers still appreciated the old-time flavor. “People used to come in and say, ‘Wow, I’m going back to the early 1900s!’ I had all these old machines that came with the place,” he reminisces. “Now we’ve updated everything with electronics and digital accessories.”
Maybe one day the old sign will come down. But for now, it hangs there like a promise. Step inside, and you’re not just a customer — you’re part of a story still being written in the soft click of tumbler locks and change-keys, and the warm smile of the man behind the counter.

Book Marks

Pinter’s Hebrew Books, located on 14th Avenue and 44th Street in Boro Park, is best known for its affordable used seforim — and for the famous “one-dollar table” outside that always draws a crowd. When I arrive, the owner, Yanky Pinter, is unloading his pickup truck full of sheimos (this is a service he provides, and whatever is salvageable, he sells on the table outside).
“My father bought this seforim store over fifty years ago,” he says. In the beginning, it was a standard seforim shop — customers would order and come back the next day to pick up their seforim. But as people began looking for instant browsing and larger stock, the Pinters shifted with the times and grew into something unique. Their true niche came naturally: Yanky’s father, a sofer who was meticulous about sheimos, began accepting items for proper disposal. He soon noticed that many seforim that people dropped off were in excellent condition, so instead of discarding them, he sold them cheaply to give them a second life.
Often, when someone moves and wants to clear out their shelves, or if a family member passes, Pinter gets a call to collect their libraries. He sifts through the books, pulling out seforim in good condition; when he’s lucky, he might even find a valuable sefer that he passes along to Jewish auction houses.
Over the years, treasures have passed through Pinter’s — rare Judaica, seforim gifted but unused, and even the occasional surprise cash tucked between the pages. “Finders keepers, losers weepers,” Pinter shrugs, though he admits he often observes dealers trying to scoop up the best finds.
Most of the action happens outside. Towers of seforim sway slightly in the breeze, shelves sag under mismatched volumes, and handwritten price signs hang loosely from the stacks. Customers browse meticulously, certain that with hundreds of books on display, they’ll stumble across something just for them. Even when the shop is closed, the seforim stay out, and people slip their payments through the shuttered storefront on the honor system.
Inside, the place is crammed from floor to ceiling — narrow paths squeezed between walls of seforim that seem to multiply when you’re not looking. Every corner hides another stack, another shelf, another heap. And somehow, in the middle of it all, Reb Yanky knows exactly where everything is.

The Best Medicine

Greenbaum’s Pharmacy on Main Street in Monsey is the picture of a family business. Opened in 1983 by Hershel Greenbaum, it’s now run together with his sons, Lazer and Motti. “They really run the show,” Reb Hershel says.
Owning a pharmacy was never part of his life plan. In fact, he was a preschool teacher at Bais Dovid until a Vizhnitz askan by the name of Yossel Neiman approached him. “He comes to me and practically insists that I open a business,” Reb Hershel recalls, “but I had so many debts — drowning in chovos — that it wasn’t even an option.” But Neiman, ever community-conscious, wouldn’t take no for an answer. Still, he understood that someone buried in debt couldn’t start fresh — and so he paid them off.
“He helped a lot of people,” Greenbaum says, still visibly moved. Buying the pharmacy required a loan, and so Neiman told him to go to the bank and have him listed as a guarantor on the loan. The pharmacy was purchased, the loan was eventually paid back, but the chesed will never be forgotten.
Step inside today, and not much has changed. “I haven’t changed a thing,” Reb Hershel says. The store looks just as it did when he bought it more than 40 years ago — an operational time capsule. The same countertops, the same shelves, and a pharmacist working in the back, surrounded by rows of white pill bottles.
The biggest difference these days? “That’s an easy one — the prices,” he says. “Everything has tripled — even Band-Aids.” His son chimes in, noting another major shift: the volume. “We were the only pharmacy in Monsey back then. Now, the population’s exploded, and so has our patient base.”
There are sweet memories, too. “My father used to write Refuah sheleimah b’meheirah on every prescription,” his son recalls. “But he stopped, on the advice of the Vizhnitzer Rebbe.” Yet some old personal touches still remain: An elderly man proudly shows off his prescription: “Apply daily after mikveh.”
There was the time Hershel Greenbaum was asked to donate to a Chinese auction. He looked around and offered a large box of Pampers. “They announced the winner, and she walked up to claim her prize — she was 84 years old!” he laughs. “You never know who’s going to win.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1081)