I was walking back to my wretched and wonderful apartment on West 10th Street in the West Village from classes on Washington Square in 1987 when I saw a portable typewriter sitting on display in the front window of the neighborhood pawn shop. I had no money to speak of, having gotten to New York only a week before, and no job prospects yet. But it was a Royal typewriter that hooked into the bottom of its case (and could be unhooked by sliding two radial dials outward) and seemed like the kind of machine upon which great books were written.
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