“New York’s Piano Row just got smaller. The piano dealer Klavierhaus, a favored haunt for international pianists since the 1990s, on Monday moved out of its storefront showroom on West 58th St. after a competitor, Beethoven Pianos, purchased the building and took over its space,” writes Brian Wise on Tuesday (3/17) at WQXR’s blog. “Klavierhaus has moved to a new location several blocks away.… The transaction is the latest in a series of moves that signal the downsizing of the midtown piano retail district…. Beethoven Pianos will lose about 2,000 square feet when it moves to the new 4,000-square-foot storefront, a move that is expected next week. … The dealer caters to a high-end consumer, selling Hamburg Steinways from Germany, restored art-case European instruments, and especially Faziolis from Italy.… There is also a larger sense that music businesses that have helped to define the West 50s are falling victim to a transfigured world. Patelson’s, the sheet music retailer behind Carnegie Hall, closed in 2009. Colony Records, at 54th and Broadway, shuttered in 2012. Steinway is expected to move out of Steinway Hall by the end of this year.”
Posted March 19, 2014
