I love seeing stories like this, especially in Newspapers like the New York Daily News. William del Pilar has been building classical guitars in Brooklyn for 52 (!) years:

A stone’s throw from the Borough Hall subway stop in Brooklyn is a nondescript storefront whose only identifying features are a patent ­application taped to the front window and a gleaming array of partially built guitars.

Inside this ordinary-looking space, William del Pilar, 65, has been building classical guitars, cuatros, mandolins and Cuban tres instruments for 45 years, just like his father did before him in the same hustle-and-bustle area of Atlantic Ave.

“My dad started off as a cabinetmaker in Quebradillas Puerto Rico,” said del ­Pilar. “One day these two guys got in a fight, and one of them broke his guitar over the other guy’s head.

“So he brought it to my dad to repair,” he continued. “But he had to do it in secret, because his dad didn’t think you could make a living repairing instruments.”

By the time William del Pilar Sr. left Puerto Rico for New York in the 1940s, he was already building his own guitars, but it wasn’t until 1957 that he was able to open his own shop.

William proudly displays a patent application in his window for his “resonant bracing system,” which he claims is a revolutionary way to keep the guitar’s tone consistent at higher frequencies.