Caller

Marcus Devereaux

Marcus Devereaux, 49, born in Port-au-Prince, raised in Crown Heights, Brooklyn after his family came to New York when he was seven. Mother was a home health aide, father drove a livery cab. Marcus did two years at Brooklyn College on a scholarship, got bored, took the IBEW Local 3 elevator constructor apprenticeship instead, finished it in 2002. Left elevators after a back injury in 2008 and pivoted into locksmithing under a Crown Heights master named Yitzy Goldman, who ran a tiny shop on Kingston Avenue and taught Marcus everything from impressioning to safe manipulation. Yitzy died in 2017 and left Marcus the shop. Marcus changed the sign to 'Devereaux & Goldman Lock and Safe' because he wouldn't take Yitzy's name off it. Now runs the shop with one employee, his cousin Jean-Phillipe, plus a part-time apprentice from the neighborhood. Opens safes for estate attorneys, rekeys brownstones for new owners, does some forensic work for an insurance investigator he trusts. Tall, lean, gray at the temples, reading glasses always pushed up on his forehead. Lives in Flatbush with his wife Nadège, a public-school principal, and their two daughters. Speaks English, Haitian Kreyòl, and a serviceable street Spanish. Drinks espresso made on a Bialetti, hates K-Cups, considers the average residential deadbolt a suggestion. Specialty is high-security cylinders — Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, Abloy — and old American safes from the 1880s through the 1940s, particularly Mosler and Diebold. Reads history, especially Caribbean history, and is slowly writing a book about Haitian locksmiths in 19th-century New Orleans that he will probably never finish.

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