17 Facts About Martin Tytell

Martin Kenneth Tytell was an expert in manual typewriters described by The New York Times as having an "unmatched knowledge of typewriters".

Martin Tytell's customers included many notable authors and reporters, many of whom had clung to their manual typewriters long after personal computers became standard.

Martin Tytell became interested in 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.

Martin Tytell had obtained a contract to maintain typewriters for Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital before graduating from high school.

Martin Tytell received his bachelor's from St John's University in Manhattan and earned an MBA from New York University, attending college primarily at night.

Martin Tytell met his wife, Pearl, in 1938, at her office in the Flatiron building.

Martin Tytell had gone there to sign a typewriter rental and repair contract.

Martin Tytell died in the Bronx of cancer on September 11,2008, while suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

In 1941, Martin Tytell created a patented process that allowed him to sell Remington and Underwood Noiseless typewriters that listed for as much as $135 and offer them for sale for $24.95 with a one-year guarantee, and aimed to sell 500 of these typewriters each week.

That same year, Martin Tytell developed a coin-operated typewriter that would be available for use in hotel lobbies and train stations for 10 cents per half-hour, modeled on a similar device used in Sweden.

Martin Tytell enlisted in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, and served in the United States Army with the rank of Sergeant, but was kept out of action due to his flat feet and knowledge of typewriters.

Martin Tytell was in the typewriter repair business for some 70 years, most of which was spent in his Tytell Typewriter Company, located on the second-floor store at 116 Fulton Street from 1963 until 2000.

Martin Tytell created typewriters that could print hieroglyphics or musical notes and invented models with carriages that operated in reverse for languages such as Arabic and Hebrew that are written right-to-left.

Hiss's lawyers then hired Martin Tytell to create a typewriter that would be indistinguishable from the one the Hiss's owned.

Martin Tytell spent two years creating a facsimile Woodstock typewriter whose print characteristics would match the peculiarities of the Hiss typewriter, which was used as one of the primary justifications for an unsuccessful appeal of the verdict in the case.

Martin Tytell's son Peter was a forensic document examiner, a practice that mother, father and son developed to resolve disputes over the authenticity of handwritten documents, such as forged signatures on checks or wills, and trace anonymous letters and documents, such as typed wills, to their source, using the unique "fingerprint" of each particular typewriter.

Martin Tytell is Maitre de Conferences, a tenured professor in the French University system and teaches in the elite "Grandes Ecoles".