Philly Typewriter

The Cumulative Care Process of Philly Typewriter.

When a machine resurfaces after sometimes decades of storage, it requires quite a bit of work to return to optimal performance. After many years of trying to “do a little,” it was decided in late 2019 that these machines deserved better, and so did their owners.

Hardened rubber, substandard storage, eraser debris, whiteout, and hardened grease made performing only a “tune-up” something daunting while trying to deliver high standards. Sometimes, only after a cleaning would it reveal deeper mechanical issues. Oftentimes, machines might need to be malaligned to achieve a modest result, only treating a symptom but not delivering a cure. Making things work and actually restoring them began to fight head to head in a match, trying to balance accessible pricing and performing the necessary work to provide a client with a machine that would last forever.

Very quickly, it became “If you give a mouse a cookie.” If we disassemble it, we’ll clean it. If we clean it, we’ll detail, polish, and manicure it. If we detail it, we’ll reassemble it, but if we reassemble it, we’ll replace the destroyed rubber and replace springs and parts… It just kept going. Just wanting it to type, although still something we can do for clients, became something that reflected poorly on the standard we’d fought hard to build. These are precision writing instruments, in many regards, the pinnacle of writing technology. They deserve the best. We aim to give them the best.

The process performed at Philly Typewriter not only works to educate and encourage retention among its mechanics but also ensure the machine is given the proper care and dedication it deserves. With each step and each set of hands the brings a typewriter back to peak performance, know that no moment was spared for giving it the care and respect dued to a machine that has waited years to type again.

Freedom of the written word. It's one of the biggest points of what we do at Philly Typewriter, it's also something that is in ever growing jeopardy today. Censorship is a common topic across all bodies of media, whether in our most antiqutated forms, or on the internet.

The many incredible departments of the Free Library of Philadelphia, specifically its main branch at Parkway Central, are experiencing an example of this censorship.

An image on many of the main branch instagram pages, however not the main one at the time of this post, has appeared reading...

"Effective 2/6/24, all fliers, social media

content, and newsletters must be approved

by the Mayor's Office.

The Communications Department will

forward the request to the Office of Children

and Families, and it will ultimately be

submitted to the Mayor's Communications

Office.

Please bear with Us.

Thank you!"

This overreach and control is something that has the potential to throttle the flow of communication between the FLP and its community.

As a home away from home for Philly Typewriter, we were saddened to see this news and we stand with the Free Library of Philadelphia. We encourage you to call the mayors office and inquire as to why they feel this policy needs to be implemented.