In 1955, the Olivetti Corporation mounted one of their typewriters on a stand outside their New York showroom on fashionable 5th Avenue near 47th Street, and people lined up to try it out. Life Magazine photographer Michael Rougier set up a hidden camera behind a screen and took pictures of people typing short messages. Many just typed the standard typewriter test sentence “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party,” but others were more imaginative. The woman shown above, Seventeen stylist Toni Kosover, decided to go for a rhyme and typed “I’d give up my spaghetti for this here Olivetti.” (In 1974, Kosover wrote a racy novel called Diary of a New York Career Girl.) Office boy James Collins, who is said to stop by nearly every day to leave a different message, typed “Marilyn Monroe is a beautiful girl.” Shipping clerk Don Fornuto typed “Don Fornuto the best kid on 119th Street.”

There’s just something fascinating about people stopping at a sidewalk typewriter to toss out random message to be seen by anyone or maybe no one — this was like the Twitter of its day.

A Sidewalk Candid Pictures Show — Life, April 11, 1955