Thursday, May 20, 2010

End of an Era

Last typist refuses to switch to laptop, gets boot from Writers Room in Greenwich Village: "The ribbon has run out on the last typewriter at a Manhattan writers' den.

Skye Ferrante has spent six years at the Writers Room in Greenwich Village, blissfully banging away on his grandmother's 1929 Royal typewriter.

The 37-year-old writer represented a bygone era, the last typewriter-user in a special room devoted to typists.

'In the event that there are no desks available, laptop users must make room for typists,' read a sign posted in the 'Typing Room' for years.

When Ferrante returned to the Writers Room in April after an eight-month break, the sign was gone and his noisy typewriter was no longer welcome."

Link via Boing Boing.

3 comments:

Seepy Benton said...

Yep, sooner or later we must all do the laptop dance.

Gar Haywood said...

His "noisy" typewriter??? What kind of nonsense is that? Half the writing done on laptops today is done in coffee houses that make the trading floor on Wall Street sound like deep space.

Gimme a break...

Richard R. said...

All those who complained about his typewriter should be required to listen to "Tradition" from Fiddler On The Roof 500 times, then write an essay on why tradition and an appreciation for maintaining it are important in our society. I'll leave the length of that essay up to you, Bill.

And of course his typewriter doesn't require a cord or battery! It's obviously better for the planet. This writer's group is obviously anti-ecology.