Martin Tytell

Martin Kenneth Tytell (December 20, 1913 – September 11, 2008) was an expert in manual typewriters described by The New York Times as having an "unmatched knowledge of typewriters". His customers included many notable authors and reporters, many of whom had clung to their manual typewriters long after personal computers became standard.

Tytell was born on December 20, 1913, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, and grew up in Manhattan's Lower East Side

Tytell met his wife, Pearl, in 1938, at her office in the Flatiron building. He had gone there to sign a typewriter rental and repair contract. He died in the Bronx of cancer on September 11, 2008, while also suffering from Alzheimer's disease. In 1941, 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, 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.

Tytell enlisted in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, and also 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. In the military he created foreign language typewriters, including French language typewriters for paratroopers who were air-dropped as part of the Invasion of Normandy. Customers included David Brinkley, Dorothy Parker and Andy Rooney, as well as both Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai E. Stevenson. discontinued by Royal a decade earlier, he was able to find two at Tytell. "How many do you want?" was Tytell's response after Brinkley called. Brinkley bought two, what he described as a lifetime supply.

The senior Tytell retired from the typewriter business in 2000, and his son closed the repair shop in 2001, expanding the 116 Fulton Street space, originally used by both Martin and Pearl Tytell for the forensic study of questioned documents, into his own forensic document research business.

Tytell's son Peter (13 August 1945 - 11 August 2020) 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. and also teaches in the elite "Grandes Ecoles".