“I’m actually not surprised,” Mr. Caro said, when told of the typewriter renaissance. The tangible pleasures of typewriters are something he’s known about for decades. “One reason I type is it simply makes me feel closer to my words,” Mr. Caro said. “It’s like being a cabinetmaker. It’s like laying down the planks. This is the way it’s supposed to feel.”

What do literary stalwarts of the original typewriter era make of all this? “We old typists, it makes us feel young again to think there’s a new generation catching on,” said Gay Talese, 79. He still uses a typewriter, albeit electric, as does his friend, Robert A. Caro, 75, the Pulitzer-winning biographer of Robert Moses and President Lyndon B. Johnson. They discussed Mr. Caro’s Smith Corona while watching the Super Bowl.

And that's what happened to teenage Roxie's favorite arcade. The existing community was kicked out, replaced by something designed with absolutely no input from the community. It wasn't even the community's choice to kick the arcade out. There was no vote, there was no decision, there were no surveys. The people who control the neighborhood aren't the people who live there, the people who hang out and enjoy its offerings, but instead some higher-ups with money, making secret deals on golf courses miles away, only concerned about moving numbers around. Gentrification, really, is the loss of ownership, the loss of community, in the places where you spend your time. Gentrification is the sense that you're no longer welcome as anything more than a cog in the machine.

It is quite large, the letters along its spine are big and bright, and readers are required to own it in print, because Mr. Caro, who still uses a typewriter, has refused to distribute the written version in any other way.

ROBERT A. CARO, THE POWER BROKER: ROBERT MOSES AND THE FALL OF NEW YORK 571 (1974)