The New York Times published a story yesterday about a man in the East Village who started his own iPhone repair company. When Brendan McElroy accidentally broke his own phone, he turned to the web for parts and tutorials to fix it himself. He improved his skills and now makes repairs out of his apartment as well as through the mail and house calls.

If you don’t want to shell out a few bucks to have your phone repaired, here are a few links on how to fix it yourself (please note that taking a phone apart will usually void the warranty, so do this at your own risk):

• Fix a cracked screen, from TechSpank
• Fix water damage, part 1 and part 2
• 3G Cracked Glass
• How to repair a cracked screen, from TidBits
• The Apple support site, just in case you want to do it the old-fashioned way