My earliest memory of obsolescence was the sudden disappearance of Alfred, the Maltese-born elevator man in the small Manhattan loft building where my father's firm made plastic business novelties. One day, when I was eight and visiting my dad's office (always a treat because I could pound away on his industrial-strength typewriter and fantasize about a writer's life), the elevator was out of commission and Alfred was no longer around. It took three months before an automatic elevator was running, but Alfred would never return.

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