{"id":34535,"date":"2025-07-12T09:06:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T14:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=34535"},"modified":"2025-07-30T12:28:47","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T17:28:47","slug":"the-piano-at-the-dumpsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=34535","title":{"rendered":"The Piano at the Dumpsters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There have been a great many strange things that have appeared at my apartment complex&#8217;s dumpsters over the years.  Such as the grandfather clock that now sits in my living room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This weekend&#8217;s find, however, tops even that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A century-old player piano.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG_20250711_162305588.jpg\" alt=\"A piano, abandoned next to the dumpsters in my apartment complex's parking lot\" class=\"wp-image-34531\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>It is, unfortunately, missing the &#8220;player&#8221; part of the piano &#8212; namely, the lid and the mechanism &#8212; but I &#8220;tickled the ivory,&#8221; so to speak, and the piano part, at least, still works and has a fantastic sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How do I know it&#8217;s a player piano, though?  Because it says it&#8217;s by The Autopiano Company of New York, and according to <a href=\"https:\/\/antiquepianoshop.com\/online-museum\/autopiano\/\">this site on antique pianos<\/a>, the Autopiano Company was in business from 1902 to about 1930, which also puts the century-ish date on its age.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG_20250711_162319638.jpg\" alt=\"Close-up of the Autopiano Company name inside the piano\" class=\"wp-image-34532\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>I feel awful leaving it there, but I have no room for it in my tiny apartment, and I&#8217;m not even sure I&#8217;d be able to get it through the apartment door if I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This piano has seen some stuff.  This piano has <i>history<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\" data-id=\"34533\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG_20250711_162416015-640x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34533\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\" data-id=\"34534\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG_20250711_162429687-640x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34534\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Hopefully someone retrieves this antique and restores it back to the musical life it so richly deserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Edited to Add<\/strong>: No one saved the piano from its sad fate, which I wrote about in part <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=34557\">here<\/a>.  It was eventually hauled away.  Everything that it was, everything that it had experienced in its century was lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There have been a great many strange things that have appeared at my apartment complex&#8217;s dumpsters over the years. Such as the grandfather clock that now sits in my living room. This weekend&#8217;s find, however, tops even that. A century-old player piano. It is, unfortunately, missing the &#8220;player&#8221; part of the piano &#8212; namely, the<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=34535\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;The Piano at the Dumpsters&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[5253,5252],"class_list":["post-34535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-autopiano-company","tag-piano","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}