5,280 Keys on the Sidewalks of New York

There are many reasons to love New York, and the latest is the decision to place sixty pianos in such high traffic locations as Lincoln Center, Times Square, and Coney Island.  The pianos were brought to NYC from Britain by the charity Sing for Hope, as part of a public art project called "Play Me, I'm Yours."  

The project was created by Luke Jerram, a British artist who dreamed up the idea while in a Bristol laundromat.  "I was going there with my underwear every week," he said, "and I thought, put a piano in here, it can act as a catalyst for conversation."  Jerram's idea has now taken told in cities from London to Sydney (where two reporters who met over a keyboard ended up married.  Yes, to each other.)

Pianists around New York have seated themselves at the venerable uprights and pounded out music by composers from J.S. Bach to Elton John.  Appropriately, the open air event began with a performance of "I Love a Piano," the Irving Berlin song that includes the lines "I know a fine way/with a Steinway." 

While there has been significant media coverage of the event during daytime hours, the Pointless Digression crew ("we never sleep") may be the first to report a phenomenon of the wee small hours.  Just before dawn breaks, figures emerge from the shades of night and sit at the keyboards.  One by one they come--Sergei Rachmaninoff, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Vladimir Horowitz, Bill Evans, Mary Lou Williams, Earl Wild, Count Basie, Artur Rubinstein, Nat "King" Cole, Leonard Bernstein, Glenn Gould.

There are many reasons to love New York.