The piano mover was the strongest man on the block. Three men and a dolly and a staircase that was not built for a piano. The piano went up and the piano went down and the building held its breath. Every landing was a negotiation. Every corner was an argument between geometry and weight. The piano mover knew angles the way a mathematician knows numbers. He did not calculate. He felt. He looked at the staircase and he looked at the piano and he knew whether it would make the turn before he lifted it.

Moving a piano into a fifth-floor walkup was an act of faith. The piano weighed eight hundred pounds and the stairs were three feet wide and the landing turned ninety degrees and the piano did not bend. The piano was the most stubborn piece of furniture in the apartment. It did not fold. It did not collapse. It did not cooperate. The piano arrived at your building the same shape it left the factory and your building had to accommodate it. The piano did not adjust to the building. The building adjusted to the piano.

I watched a piano go up a building on East Fourth Street in 1968. Three men. No elevator. Four flights. The piano was a Steinway upright and the men carried it on their backs up the stairs like pallbearers carrying a casket except the casket was alive and full of music. One man on each end and one man underneath and they counted to three and they lifted and they took one step and they rested and they took another step and they rested and four flights took two hours and when they set it down in the apartment the whole floor shook and the woman who lived there sat down and played Chopin and the movers stood in the doorway and listened because they had earned that song.

The piano mover charged by the flight. Ground floor was one price. Every floor after that was more. Fifth floor was the most because fifth floor was where God tested your back. The piano movers were Italian. They were Irish. They were Black men from Harlem and Puerto Rican men from the Bronx and they all had the same back and the same hands and the same look on their face when you said fifth floor. The look said I will do it but I will not enjoy it and you will pay me what it is worth.

Nobody moves pianos into walkups anymore because nobody lives in a walkup with a piano. The piano is in the suburbs now. The piano is in a house with a wide door and a ground floor and a moving truck that backs up to the entrance and a ramp that the piano rolls down. The piano does not climb stairs anymore. The music is at street level. The piano mover is a moving company now and the moving company does not listen to Chopin in the doorway. The moving company has a clipboard and a liability waiver and a truck and the piano goes in the truck and the truck goes to the house and nobody counts to three and nobody rests on the landing and nobody earns the song.

See also: Tenement Roof, Brownstone