It took all of 90 seconds for two workers to load my old Baldwin upright piano onto a dolly, roll it out my front door and position it on the liftgate of their truck.
“You’d be surprised how many people cry when we do this,” said one of the men as he worked the controls to bring the piano up into the truck.
Actually, I wouldn’t. As he spoke, I was fighting back a tear.
I bought the piano in 1982. I had just rented my first apartment. At $2,500, the Baldwin was the single largest purchase I had ever made.
It hasn’t been the best of times for pianos. A fixture in middle-class homes throughout much of the 20th century—as a source of entertainment and a status symbol—pianos have gradually fallen out of favor. They’re bulky and expensive to maintain properly. Sales in the United States peaked in 1910, when nearly 365,000 were sold, and even in 1980 there were still a healthy 228,000 sold. But by 2020, only 20,870 were sold. It’s hard to compete with inexpensive electronic keyboards that come with programmable bass and drum accompaniment.
It’s also hard to sell a used “acoustic” piano, as they are now called. People trying to get rid of their piano quickly progress from trying to sell it, to trying to donate it, to begging someone, anyone, just to take it.
In 2012, The New York Times published an article about a graveyard for used pianos where workmen would push them off the back of their truck, bust them up with sledgehammers and sometimes use them for firewood. Nine years later, I still get a knot in my stomach when I think of that article.
In its 39 years with me, the Baldwin was a good friend. Thanks to arthritis, an essential tremor in my right hand and an overall loss of muscle memory, my better playing days are well behind me.
When the salesman agreed to take my old piano as a trade-in, he promised me the store would attempt to repair it and find it a new home. I left the showroom unsure if he really meant it or if he was just trying to make me feel better. But he was true to his word. After a few weeks the piano appeared on the store’s website. The sales copy says, “It has a sweet, clear sound and superior touch.” I’ve circled back to the page many times to visit my old friend. It saddens me to think of it sitting there in a warehouse, unplayed, surrounded by other castoff pianos, waiting to bring joy to a new owner. Sometimes I even fantasize about buying it back. The thought of workmen tossing my old Baldwin off the back of their truck and smashing it for firewood is a scenario too heartbreaking to ponder.
John Ficarra was the editor of Mad magazine from 1985 to 2018.