A block of charred wood wrapped in rope sat at the entrance of Rick Kelly’s guitar shop in the West Village. He carted it from the scorched site of the Serbian Orthodox cathedral destroyed in a fire in the Flatiron district last month.

“I had to do some fast talking to get it,” he said, explaining how he reassured a suspicious police officer that he had gotten an O.K. from the monsignor of the historic church. “They would have thrown it away in the ocean.”

When old wood becomes available in the city, Mr. Kelly appears. He builds guitars from what he calls the “bones” of New York: centuries-aged pine planks from establishments like Chumley’s, the Chelsea Hotel and squalid former Bowery saloons like McGurk’s Suicide Hall. Bob Dylan has played his instruments, as have the guitarists Marc Ribot and Bill Frisell. Lou Reed performed some of his final concerts with a guitar made from Bowery wood.

“Dylan had to have a guitar with wood from Chumley’s because he used to drink there,” Mr. Kelly said. “He later wanted to know if beer he spilled on the floor at Chumley’s might have ended up in his guitar.”