By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
FINANCIAL DISTRICT — Amid the honking trucks and squealing tourists, a new sound has arrived on Broad Street near the Stock Exchange: piano music.
A colorful piano that had been one of the 60 that were scattered across the city for the “Play Me, I’m Yours” public art project has moved to Broad Street under an agreement between the artists who created it and the Downtown Alliance.
All the other pianos disappeared after the art project ended on July 5, but the Downtown Alliance arranged to keep one for lower Manhattan until Aug.1 in exchange for assigning crews to keep an eye on it. Broad Street had not been one of the original locations included in the art installation.
“This is fun — it’s something residents, workers and visitors can all do,” said Liz Berger, president of the Downtown Alliance, which will monitor the piano, lock it up each night and unlock it each morning through Labor Day.
The piano, installed last Friday on Broad Street’s pedestrian plaza, attracted a steady stream of eager players on Monday afternoon.
Harold Lewis, 43, a Brooklyn resident and a messenger for the city, stopped by three times in a single day: first, on his way to work in the morning, then at lunchtime and again in the late afternoon. He played hymns he knew from church and said the music brought back memories of his grandmother taking him to piano lessons when he was a child.
Other players on Monday were hoping for fame.
“Kids can probably get their start from here, if a talent booker is walking by,” said Michael Ortega, 14, a visitor from Miami, after whipping through Billy Joel's “Piano Man” and “The Entertainer.”
Groups of tourists and local workers gathered around the piano to listen to the music and snap photos.
Heberthe Dely, 26, who was preparing an essay on the Bible for a church meeting at a table just a few feet away, said the hubbub didn’t bother her at all.
“It’s soothing,” said Dely, who lives in Harlem. “It’s nice, rather than all the other noise pollution.”
The piano in front of 25 Broad St. is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week through Aug. 1.
