Every business day, as he has done for the past 49 years, Paul Schweitzer, 69, travels the streets and skyscrapers of Manhattan making “house” calls, carrying his black leather tool bag by his side. Schweitzer, who insists on wearing a suit and tie while on his rounds, is one of the last of his kind: the typewriter repairman.
In 1932, Schweitzer’s father opened Gramercy Typewriter in Manhattan, selling and repairing typewriters. “At one time, there were millions of typewriters in the city,” says Schweitzer, who began working for the family business in 1959 and took it over when his father retired in 1975. “You would go in an office and there were a hundred desks and each one had a typewriter,” he says.
Over the years, Gramercy earned a reputation for quick repairs and excellent customer service. The elder Schweitzer gave out wooden rulers that bore the company’s name and logo as advertising. The shop’s client base spanned from the tip of Wall Street up to the top of Harlem.
Surviving the IBM Selectric
The Schweitzers were quick to adapt to changes. The first big one came in 1961, when IBM (IBM) introduced the Selectric typewriter. The Selectric used a typeball that could be changed to display different fonts. The ball replaced the traditional pivoting type bars and the need for a moving carriage with a paper roller. Gramercy, like every other repair shop, had to learn how to fix and overhaul the new machines. Aside from new iterations of the Selectric, for the next 30 years, the typewriter business remained relatively steady.
Then came the introduction of the personal computer in the 1980s. Gradually, businesses began replacing their typewriters with desktop computers. By the early 1990s, the shift practically had made the typewriter obsolete. A number of Gramercy’s competitors went out of business. “When…