After more than 50 years, a beloved Boston-area typewriter shop is closing its doors
After more than 50 years, a beloved Boston-area typewriter shop is closing its doors
Along the main thoroughfare of Arlington, Massachusetts, is a tiny typewriter repair and retail shop: Cambridge Typewriter. The place has been around so long that the phone number on the big sign above the front door doesn’t even have the area code.
On a Saturday morning, amidst towers of typewriters, customers were edging around each other to look at what’s in stock.
Typewriters and vintage media have seen a real resurgence in recent years, but that’s only part of the reason that the store is packed — Tom Furrier, the shop’s owner of 45 years, announced that he’s closing the shop at the end of March.
“As soon as I posted that we’re closing March 31, it went crazy, and it’s been like this every single day, all day,” Furrier said. “I haven’t got anything done at my bench, which is fine because I love meeting people and talking typewriters. But I need to fix some of these machines before I go.”
Furrier is turning 70 this year and he said he’s ready to retire. Over the last year, he had tried to find a buyer for the shop, but it didn’t work out.
“I just said, ‘That’s it. I’m not putting off retirement anymore,'” Furrier said. “‘We’re just gonna have to close the shop, and people will have to find other means.’”
Although Furrier calls his store a “break-even kind of business,” there are more than 50 typewriter shops still operating across the U.S., and the demand for these services exists — particularly in the last two decades as vintage came back into style.
More recently, however, there might be another reason for the interest in typewriters and all things vintage: Taylor Swift.
Meghan Miraglia, a 23-year-old studying for her MFA at Boston University, was in the shop for the first time Saturday, hoping to get her family’s typewriter fixed up. Miraglia, a self-described Swifty, said that she would credit Swift with the resurgence.
“[Taylor Swift] is really one to take retro aesthetics and revisit them and consider how they can be applied to the contemporary,” Miraglia said.
Tom estimates about a third of his customers these days are young adults like Meghan, but not all first-timers fit that category. Charles Gilroy was there from Hingham, Massachusetts. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s back in 2008 and he was there to find a typewriter that will help with tasks like writing checks.
“My handwriting is so bad, some things come back to me where they can’t read it in the post office,” Gilroy said. “I’ve been trying to find a program for my computer that would be able to write out a check. I haven’t been able to find one that you could just take an envelope, stick it in and just, you know, line up the lines and write the check.”
The electric Corona Smith that Furrier dug out and sold to Gilroy is going to add to Furrier’s repair backlog, which he figures is about four months long now.
“Best part of my day is when I get to leave my workbench, come out here and geek out over typewriters with someone that I just met,” Furrier said. “You know, it’s beautiful.”
He still has about a month to make those memories, and fix all those typewriters.
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