The type doctor does house calls
In an era where we glorify speed and nearly everyone carries a computer in their pocket, it’s a surprise to find New York City’s Paul Schweitzer filling up a “doctor’s bag” with tools of his trade — typewriter ribbons, needle-nose pliers — to make emergency calls to repair sticky typewriter keys and shredded ribbons.
Vintage typewriters are making a comeback, due to young people who appreciate the machines in the same way they fell in love with vinyl records and turntables. Celebrities — including actor and typewriter enthusiast Tom Hanks — writers, collectors and anyone who wants to own a reminder of simpler times have been the key to Schweitzer’s success at Gramercy Typewriter Co., a shop started by his father, Abraham Schweitzer, in 1932.
In the early 2000s, Schweitzer said he sold about 10 manual typewriters a month. In recent years that number skyrocketed to about 60 a month, with millennials steadily buying the machines and bringing them in for service.
“In the last five or six years, I’ve seen a huge rush on manual portable machines,” Schweitzer, 79, said about his business, located across Fifth Ave. from the iconic Flatiron Building.
During the holiday season in December, he said, 110 typewriters were sold — at a cost between $195 and $595 (U.S.) each — as gifts for children and young adults. He expects to see similar sales this year.
“People love them,” he said. “They take us back to a slower-paced, quieter time.”
While Manhattan was once home to hundreds of typewriter stores, there are now only a handful, Schweitzer said. There are only about 250 repair shops coast to coast, he added. Now that he’s approaching age 80, he said, he almost feels an obligation to continue the work for as long as he can — just as his father did after starting the family business during the Great Depression.
“There’s a big demand right now for what we do,” said Schweitzer, who wears a tidy black apron over his shirt and tie so that he’ll always be ready for emergency office calls.
“Just the other day, a man came in with his 12-yearold son,” he said. “The kid wanted a typewriter. Not a computer. A typewriter. He wanted to type notes to his friends.”
People are astonished, Schweitzer said, to learn that he lugs a physician’s bag on office calls to businesses throughout Manhattan, where manual typewriters are still tucked away in corners here and there.
“The days are gone when an insurance company might need to have 200 typewriters cleaned,” he said, “but they might have 15 or 20. It’s rewarding to me to help keep these machines running.”
Schweitzer finds beauty in a smooth-functioning Smith-Corona or IBM Selectric, and he has plenty of company. One of his most loyal customers is Hanks, who has a large collection of typewriters — not to simply decorate an office, but for letters and memos.