SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
In the age of laptop computers, thumbing, text messages and AI chat bots, manual typewriters may seem antique. But for some of us, typewriters are as classic as B.J. Leiderman, who writes our theme music. As Craig LeMoult of member station GBH reports, those selling and servicing typewriters say business hasn't been this good in decades.
TOM FURRIER: Hi, there.
RON LEWIS: Hello.
FURRIER: How you doing?
CRAIG LEMOULT, BYLINE: Tom Furrier greets a customer walking in the door of the Cambridge Typewriter Company, a tiny shop crammed wall to wall with old typewriters. The customer, Ron Lewis, has brought in a small portable typewriter he bought on eBay. Furrier opens its case.
(SOUNDBITE OF CASE OPENING)
FURRIER: Oh, it's a cute little thing. Look at that.
LEWIS: So the carriage gets stuck...
FURRIER: Yeah.
LEWIS: ...And the bell doesn't work.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYPEWRITER CARRIAGE RATTLING)
FURRIER: Yeah, it certainly does get stuck.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYPEWRITER CARRIAGE RATTLING)
LEMOULT: Lewis traveled two hours to ask Furrier to fix his machine. He got here just in time. He hadn't heard the news yet that the shop is closing at the end of March.
LEWIS: So retiring completely? Closing the shop down?
FURRIER: Well, I can't find anyone to buy the shop.
LEMOULT: Furrier has been at Cambridge Typewriter for 45 years. It all started when his friend, whose father owned the store then, asked if he wanted to try out fixing typewriters.
FURRIER: I came in and worked the entire day. It flew by in minutes, it seemed like. At the end of the day, this voice in my head said, this is it.
LEMOULT: Furrier refurbishes old machines in a room in the back of his small shop.
FURRIER: I'm going to turn this on.
(SOUNDBITE OF AIR COMPRESSOR BLOWING)
LEMOULT: He uses an air compressor to blow out the dust and gunk in the keys of a 1950s Royal Quiet De Luxe.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYPERWITER KEYS RATTLING)
LEMOULT: When he first started working here, Furrier says there were about 40 busy typewriter shops across Metro Boston, selling and fixing business machines. But then, of course, came the personal computer.
FURRIER: I remember how quickly it happened, and being so shocked that the transition, which I thought was going to take years, happened almost overnight.
LEMOULT: Everywhere, typewriter shops were closing. And as the owner of Cambridge Typewriter considered calling it quits, Furrier made the seemingly crazy decision to buy the shop in 1990. By then, there were almost no customers.
FURRIER: Sometimes I'd go, like, three or four months, or six months, without getting paid.
LEMOULT: He says his wife supported him through the tough times, financially and emotionally.
FURRIER: Whenever I'd come home and I had a bad day, I'd come home and my shoulders are slumping and my head's down, and she'd go, shoulders up there, soldier.
LEMOULT: It was like that for years. But around 2001, he noticed something new. A high-school-aged girl came in the shop looking for an old manual typewriter. Then, over a month or so, a few more did.
FURRIER: I finally asked one of the girls. I says, you know, what's up with, you know, the old Remington typewriters? And she goes, well, that's the typewriter Sylvia Plath used to write her poetry on. And ding, ding, ding - the light went on over my head, and it's like, oh, my God, this is going to be the new thing, you know, young people looking for vintage typewriters to write their stories, their poetry.
LEMOULT: Sure enough, business started picking up and hasn't slowed down since. By now, he was the only typewriter shop around. Things got even busier during the pandemic, with people stuck at home wanting to write.
FURRIER: I had a line of people waiting outside my store.
LEMOULT: The resurgence of typewriters has continued. Shops have opened in recent years in Chicago, Dayton and Merrimack, New Hampshire. There's an annual typewriter festival in Milwaukee, which claims to be the birthplace of the typewriter. Furrier says business is better now than ever before. But he's about to turn 70, and he's ready to retire.
FURRIER: It is very bittersweet. I am going to miss my customers so much. I get emotional just thinking about it.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL RINGING)
STEVE WOELFEL: Hi, how are you?
FURRIER: Good. How are you?
WOELFEL: I have a 10-year-old who's an old soul, and he wants a typewriter.
FURRIER: Hear it all the time.
WOELFEL: We got him a laptop for Christmas, and he said, I was hoping for a typewriter.
LEMOULT: For Steve Woelfel's son and others growing up surrounded by far more advanced technology, maybe typewriters will offer an antidote to AI.
For NPR News, I'm Craig LeMoult in Boston.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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