[dropcap size=big]A[/dropcap] pile of typewriters and boxes full of random cables in the middle of the night next to the new solar-powered trash compactors on the corner of Figueroa Street and Avenue 58 confirmed it: 36 years of repairing typewriters on the same corner in Highland Park has come to an end for the Flores family.
“We’re sad, but we’ve had enough,” said Ruben Flores, the 56-year-old owner of the business tells me on a recent day. Ruben, his 34-year-old son also named Ruben, and a family friend had spent the last few months emptying nearly four decades worth of typewriters in his two-story shop, including a few machines from the late 1800s.
He delivered the keys to Michael Saghi, the landlord, last Friday.
“It’s been somber,” Ruben Flores Jr. told me. “I’m 32 and the typewriter repair has always been around me.”