• Sam’s Auto Body Shop

  50 Old Fulton St., at Hicks St., Dumbo; 718-488-5990

  Five years ago, Sam Sem, of his eponymous auto-body shop, moved his business from East 10th Street in Manhattan to Dumbo, and his customers followed, hauling their crashed cars across the river. Sam and his brother, the shop’s manager, are experts at handling the repairs that come with a dense city full of traffic: busted side mirrors, keyed doors, bashed bumpers. He’s perfectly happy dealing with a generic Chevy, but he’s worked on his share of Mercedes-Benzes and even antiques. If Sam has a specialty, it’s customer interaction: Car owners are consulted throughout the process, and Sam always presents several repair options to each client, from basic fixes to a make-it-new overhaul. A quiet word-of-mouth reputation has given rise to stellar Internet ratings, which may be why the license plates out front range surprisingly far from New York.

From the 2013 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine