Small Business Focus: The Jewel Boutique

Harmeet Singh at The Jewel Boutique.

By Carol Tannenhauser

“You dream it, I’ll make it,” said Harmeet Singh, owner of The Jewel Boutique on Broadway, between 97th and 98th Streets. “We are one of the very few places in the city that specializes in the custom design of jewelry. We also do a lot of restyling and repurposing: taking your pieces and redoing them, so you can use them differently.

“If you inherit something from your great aunt and it’s not your style, we take apart the gems and see what’s good and we can reuse,” Harmeet explained. “A woman inherited a ruby-and-diamond bracelet, wore it once, and it stayed in the safe. We took it and, in the end, she got five stack rings, a necklace, earrings, and she wears everything. Unfortunately, we do a lot of redesigning of engagement rings, too,” he said. “Divorce.”

Harmeet is an observant Sikh. His parents were from India, but moved for work to Kuwait, where he and his brother grew up. In 1982, when he was 18, the family immigrated to America, and he became an instant patriot. “It’s a blessed life we have here,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. After Kuwait, it was total freedom to do anything.”

Anything, that is, except not be a jeweler.

“I was under my father’s guidance,” he laughed. “That’s the Indian way. I was going to be a jeweler; I had no choice. My father had a wholesale Swiss-watch business. In 1989, he opened a small store on 70th and Columbus. In this country, with watches you also have jewelry. I liked the jewelry part: the gems, the colors. People would come in and say, “Can you design a ring for me?’ I liked to draw, so I started drawing jewelry and I was pretty good.”

Times changed. In 2007, The Jewel Boutique moved to its current location. “As rents got higher, you moved north,” Harmeet explained. “Technology also got to us and we started doing the drawings by computer, then making 3D printings of wax. Just as a printer goes back and forth printing in ink, you can inject wax through it and it takes about 10 to 12 hours to build a piece of jewelry that you can hold. The customer can see and try it on to make sure it’s 100% what they have imagined. Once the customer okays that, we cast it in whatever metal we’re going to use.

“In hindsight, I love this business,” Harmeet said. His father has since passed away. “It’s very satisfying because you’ve created and produced something and you’re making the customer happy. I get to travel to gems shows, where I can buy whatever I want. There are miles and miles of stones. I pick my own, one by one. I look for special cuts, rare colors, rare stones. I have things you won’t find even in Tiffany’s.”

“I don’t know where else I’d go,” said Karen Marshall, a longtime customer, who had stopped in to pick up something and drop something off. “There isn’t any other place like it around here. They have wonderful things and they’re wonderful people. It’s warm and it’s friendly. We’re thrilled that they got their lease renewed. That’s what we talked about at my book club last Thursday night!”

Harmeet laughed. “We have a very decent landlord. We negotiated in September and he gave us a break, because he wants us to stay. So, we’re here for another 10 years. If the landlord hadn’t worked with me, I would have had to pack up.”

“Silver Bells” played softly in the background, as a young man entered the store, looking for a necklace for his girlfriend for Christmas.

“Of course this is a busy time,” Harmeet said, “but so is Valentine’s and Mother’s Day and birthdays and anniversaries. People are being born every day. Anniversaries are more in the summer. Engagement rings are more May through September.

“This neighborhood has been a blessing for us,” he said, smiling. “There are so many families in which I know the parents for 20 years and now the kids are grown and I’m doing their engagement rings. At the end of the day, it boils down to trust. Like a doctor and lawyer, you need a good jeweler.”

Photos by Carol Tannenhauser.

West Side Rag has been profiling small businesses, which are disappearing from the neighborhood at an alarming rate. To read more in this series, click here.