When you need a crane to move your baby grand piano or other large stuff in NYC [video]
- Moving a piano by crane is necessary if the elevator and stairwell are too narrow
- The cost runs about $20,000 for the day and typically involves shutting down the street
- Cranes are also used in NYC to move large, heavy items like artwork and furniture
When there's no other way to move something large in NYC, a crane is necessary, as was the case for this artwork.
Steinway Moving & Storage
There are complicated New York City moves and then there are moves that involve a baby grand piano and a crane to hoist it through a window 50 feet in the sky. (And you probably thought packing your glassware was a headache!)
Even in a city as vertical as NYC, moving a piano by crane is rare, but it does happen when there is no other way, said Joe Hamill, director of residential services at Steinway Moving & Storage. He recently posted to LinkedIn a heart-stopping video (below) of a move coordinated by his company that involved hoisting a Steinway piano, wrapped up and lying on its side in a giant crate, to a fifth-floor window at an East 52nd Street building.
In the video, as the crate nears the apartment window, a worker reaches out to spin the platform to line up the piano with the window, and secure the rigging in preparation for guiding the piano out of the grate and into the window. It all went smoothly, thanks to months of preparation.
Shutting down a NYC street
Hamill spoke to Brick about what was involved in the move, noting that Auer's Moving & Rigging was responsible for the rigging and the crane. Auer's helped get the permits, shut down the street, and “fit a 48-foot piano body through a 50-foot window,” he said.
With 10 years of working in NYC luxury moving, Hamill called it “a top 10 project in terms of complexity.”
It’s also a pricey endeavor—typically about $20,000 for the day, he said. For that reason, “You are going to try to move a piano every other way besides crane,” he said. But when a building’s elevator and stairwell are not large enough, for people who love their pianos, there is no other way.
Hamill said this is especially true of his NYC luxury clientele.
“People buy for the space they are in,” he said. And they typically want to bring their prized possessions with them when they move, but that’s where they run into trouble.
“Spaces are unique. I cannot tell you how many times people pay to move things that don’t ultimately fit,” he said. “And moving is very personal. You have to make it happen for them and the city will throw as many curve balls at you as possible.”
Another crane story: One time his firm moved a massive sleigh bed from the top floor of a brownstone for a celebrity couple that was so famous his team could never be there when they were home.
As for the Steinway piano, it hadn’t moved in 30 years from its previous residence, a building that was large enough to do the move out with conventional methods.
Bringing to it new home, on the other hand, was a “big spectacle,” as the video shows.
One piano, many moves
Jean and Brian know something about creating a big spectacle by hoisting a piano into the air. They also used Auer's to move Jean’s piano in and out of their apartment on the Upper East Side, most recently for their move to Riverdale, which Brick featured. (The folks at Auer's didn’t respond to requests from Brick to share their tales; they may be too busy hoisting pianos.)
Jean, a classically trained pianist, retired from her position as the Lucille Lortel Professor of Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. She grew up playing the piano and her 1950s era Knabe (“a mid-century marvel,” according to her piano tuner), once belonged to her piano teacher mother. Jean told Brick she has a childhood memory of going with her mother to buy it. For a music-loving family, a piano makes a home feel complete, she told Brick.
She wouldn’t think of leaving it behind, and so the instrument is well-traveled. Years ago, it made the move from Florida to NYC, and before that, from Oregon to Florida. She’s become increasingly careful about moving it—for example, using movers who have climate-controlled trucks “so the wood doesn’t warp.”
With neither the elevator or stairs large enough, moving the piano into and out of the Jean and Brian’s Upper East Side apartment had to be done by crane. And because their apartment faces the back of the building, both the moves had to be through their neighbors’s street-facing apartments—who fortunately didn’t mind.
Not wishing to use specific numbers, Jean said that 19 years later, it cost nearly 10 times more to move out because the city’s fees went up. (The block had to be closed to traffic.) And moving the piano alone cost more than moving the contents of the apartment.
The first time she moved the baby grand by crane, she couldn’t watch it happen. But for the most recent move, her friends wanted to watch—in fact many people on the block did, like the neighborhood barber—so she joined them, knowing the piano had survived its first hoist by Auer's unscathed.
'Big window pivot'
Still, it was a little different watching it happen live.
“After the piano comes out of the window and gets attached to the crane, there’s a moment when it seems to drop really fast,” Jean recalled. “I thought, ‘Oh my God.’”
She said she was most worried about the mover who was tasked with standing on the ledge and reaching out and directing the movement of the piano, what Jean called, “the big window pivot.”
Now safely in its new home and tuned (her tuner said it was fine) she has discovered how having a piano is once again creating a home for her.
Perhaps thanks to its large elevator, their Riverdale building attracted several other piano owners as well. “You hear music when you enter the building,” she said. With her own piano is lending its notes, it has served as an ice breaker, prompting her neighbor musicians to introduce themselves.
Advice if you’re moving a piano
If you’re thinking of moving a piano, Jean has some advice for you: Use a professional piano mover. “Don’t cut corners,” she said. “You can’t just stick it in a moving van. It’s not a regular piece of furniture; it needs special attention.”
And that goes for caring for the instrument at home. Many NYC apartments can be overly dry in winter. A hydrometer can help you maintain the correct humidity for a piano to prevent it from drying out—and you as well. “Some humidity is good for humans too,” she said.
Why you may need a crane
Often when New Yorkers move, they sell or donate large furnishings because moving big items can be very tricky. They may not fit the style of your new place, or may not fit, period.
So it can be surprising to find out some of the more interesting things that New Yorkers choose to take with them, no matter how challenging they are to move.
“We once had to move a large safe for a client who was a famous jewelry designer on the Upper East Side. The safe weighed 1,500 pounds,” said Vojin Popivic, CEO and founder of Piece of Cake Moving & Storage. He said the company used specialized equipment to lift and move the safe out of the apartment, which was fortunately on the ground floor.
Items don’t need to be especially heavy or intricate to be difficult to move. Some places in NYC have narrow hallways or doorways, so furniture needs to be disassembled, or even cut up by a “sofa doctor” or similar specialist, in order to be moved and then reassembled at the destination.
Popivic said this can occur at a prewar building, or at a property that has been renovated in a way that is not up to code.
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