By Sarah Hambro, Staff Reporter
Two young men stood at the counter of Jack's Hardware on 3202 Third Ave. discussing the measurements, price and delivery time of a burglary gate they wanted to buy from the 69-year-old storeowner, Jacob Goldwasser.
"See the gates I just sold?" Goldwasser said before explaining that he never sold as many locks in the old days as he does now: "They didn't need to secure."
Since he opened Jack's Hardware across from the old Borough Courthouse 41 years ago, Goldwasser has seen the neighborhood go from solidly middle class to bombed out and deserted. He considered joining the exodus. But as the neighborhood is slowly recovering -- half the houses on the courthouse square are still boarded up, but there is a new housing development two blocks down on St. Ann's Avenue -- the grumpy but good-natured Goldwasser is still there, watching it improve and serving the neighborhood's hardware needs. His store stocks everything from rat traps and refrigerator magnets to burglary gates and paint.
"He's a hard man to deal with, but a good man," said Kathleen Moore, a customer of more than 20 years.
Originally from Wlodawa, Poland, Goldwasser escaped Nazi gas chambers and bullets during World War II. The Germans tried to shoot him and five others, but Goldwasser was last in the line, he said, and fell over, only pretending to be shot, when the gunshots rang out.
"The Germans walked away from me. They thought I was dead," Goldwasser said. He said he lost his five brothers, but survived by going underground, hiding in the forest until the Russian army rolled into the country and crushed the Germans.
Goldwasser said a Jewish organization helped him come to the United States, where he had two relatives. He went to work in a Manhattan hardware store and learned the business. After three years, he bought his own store.
Goldwasser's wife, Sally, whom he had met in the United States, worked in the store for many years. But it is "not good for a man and a woman to work together," Goldwasser said. Now that they don't work together, he said, Sally appreciates it more when he returns to their home in Bayside, Queens, each evening. His two sons have opted not to work in the hardware store; one is a dental surgeon and the other is a kidney specialist.
"If you know how to help yourself, it's a good country," Goldwasser said.
But the South Bronx hasn't always been good. As the area declined in the '50s and '60s, the German Jewish families who had shopped at Jack's Hardware moved out of the area. Some were replaced by Puerto Ricans and blacks. But many others left nothing behind but empty apartments, Goldwasser said.
"It was so bad that even the bad people moved out of here," he said.
Goldwasser also wanted to leave, but could not afford to.
People Goldwasser has known since their parents brought them into the store in strollers, and who later moved to areas like New Jersey, still bring their children back to visit, he said. "'I can't believe it, Jack is still here,' they say."
He is not sorry he stayed. But now he is contemplating retirement. He plans to sell the store to his assistant Jerry Green as soon as Green comes up with $250,000. Still, Goldwasser is apprehensive.
"I'm afraid to give it up," he said. "People tell me this is my medicine."