I was sad to read that David Lerner died. I did not know David, nor did I ever meet him. But I did go to almost every location of his beloved Tekserve in NYC.1

A few choice personal memories of Tekserve: I took my total POS PowerBook 5300cs in for a hinge repair. It was the first time I was in the shop, and I felt nearly every feeling I could have: Awe (what an amazing place!), intimidation (everyone here is smarter than me (the workers), everyone here is more talented than me (customers)), apprehension (how much is this going to cost to fix this terrible, terrible Mac?). When the store moved to… I can’t remember, but I know it was on the second floor of a building, and they had an old deli-style ticket machine that you’d punch yourself to get into the queue to get help, and it’s where I bought my wife’s first iPod for Christmas of 2001. I bought our iMac G4 in that same location right after my daughter was born. I remember having them put in more RAM, too. I also bought something (now mostly forgotten) called the SLIMP3 which let me play MP3s from some little Linux box I had set up. I still have the SLIMP3 sitting around somewhere because it’s an incredibly cool piece of kit.

One stand-out memory was going with a good friend of mine from a Macworld show in NYC to Tekserve (this was before the 23rd Street store), where he just bought a PowerBook G3 Pismo. He paid $3,499 in 2000, and I could not believe he just bought it. I still, 25 years later, can’t bring myself to buy Pringles on an airplane ride because they cost $6.

I know it was a place most people went to buy a new Mac or, more likely, get their Macs repaired, and while that was how the place made its money, there was something more. Until the 23rd Street store, the locations they had were pretty small (at least from the customer’s view), but once the 23rd Street store opened, it became a place where you could browse a lot easier. Heck, it even had a museum in it from earlier Apple IIs and NeXT Cubes, and I am pretty sure Lisas (I don’t think I made that up, but I guess I wouldn’t bet money on it).

But every location was the kind of store you hoped existed. It had handmade signs, it was a little chaotic, and even dramatic with folks desperately needing their Mac fixed. I guess chaotic isn’t really the right word, but you know, think of a really busy place that no matter how disorganized it may have looked, it had what you wanted (either to buy or a way to repair your Mac). Tekserve represented what made New York City New York City. The city is less than without it. Just like the world is less than without David in it (although much better off for him being here).2

  1. The picture on Wikipedia was from their 23rd Street store. I remember being in at least two other locations starting in 1996 or 1997 (when I first moved to NYC). ↩︎

  2. You can read more about the store in Tamara Shopsin’s LaserWriter II. I enjoyed it very much. ↩︎

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