Martin Tytell

Martin Tytell

Martin Kenneth Tytell (December 20, 1913 – September 11, 2008) was an expert in manual typewriters described by The New York Times as having an "unmatched knowledge of typewriters". The postal service would deliver to his store letters addressed simply to "Mr. Typewriter, New York". His customers included many notable authors and reporters, many of whom had clung to their manual typewriters long after personal computers became standard.

Tytell was born on December 20, 1913 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, and grew up in Manhattan's Lower East Side. He worked in a hardware store in his youth and first learned about typewriters at age 15 after disassembling an Underwood 5 typewriter on his gym teacher's desk at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn and watching it being repaired. He had obtained a contract to maintain typewriters for Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital before graduating from high school. He received his bachelor's from St. John's University in Queens and earned an MBA from New York University, attending college primarily at night.

Tytell met his wife, Pearl, in 1938 after he sold her a typewriter at an office she managed. He died in the Bronx of cancer on September 11, 2008 while also suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Read more about Martin Tytell:  Tytell Typewriter Company, Forensic Analysis, See Also

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