David Lerner, RIP
David Lerner, a high school dropout and self-taught computer geek whose funky foothold in New York’s Flatiron district, Tekserve, was for decades a beloved discount mecca for Apple customers desperate to retrieve lost data and repair frozen hard drives, died on Nov. 12 at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 72.
[…]
He and Mr. Demenus transformed a two-man operation in Mr. Demenus’s loft apartment into a business whose customers were as eclectic as the 200 or so employees who served them at makeshift help desks well before Apple formally established and branded “genius bars” in their stores.
[…]
During the nearly three decades before Tekserve shuttered its retail operations in 2016 — because of rising rents and competition from Apple’s stores — the sales and service outlet was where Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker on HBO’s “Sex and the City,” raced when her PowerBook crashed. It was also the setting of Tamara Shopsin’s 2021 novel “LaserWriter II,” narrated by a 19-year-old newbie techie named Claire who works there.
Via Jason Snell:
Back in the day, when there were no Apple Stores, shops like Tekserve saved the bacon of Mac users on a regular basis. I never visited Tekserve, but it was legendary.
Previously:
Update (2025-12-03): Andy Lee:
It’s hard to explain what a magical place Tekserve was. They let us hold CocoaHeads meetings in a room in their basement, where the walls were lined with shelves full of curious vintage tech.
Update (2025-12-10): Adam Engst:
But perhaps David’s most interesting, albeit fictional, appearance in TidBITS came in my short-lived but fun foray into writing tech analysis in noir style. In “The Mystery of the Leopard Ship Date: Solved” (16 April 2007), I quoted him as saying:
“I’m personally disappointed, because I was looking forward to Time Machine.” This wasn’t surprising from a man who signs his email, ‘May You have 1000 Backups and Never Need One.’
I can’t remember how I got the quote, but that really was his email signature, and David did care deeply about backups.
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TekServe was one of those stores where the wooden floor creaked! I felt dubious about that, since it was supposed to be a store for modern computers! But maybe it was always the SE/30 of a store. I don't begrudge Jason Snell or anybody never visiting. I never had any business to conduct there. It was as much a museum even 20 years ago as it was anything, alas.
