![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thevillagetrip.com\/festival\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Steinway.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA loft is perhaps not the most obvious place to build pianos, but that\u2019s where Steinway\u2019s
\nAmerican history began in 1853, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg having arrived in New York
\nfrom Germany with his family three years earlier.<\/p>\n
It was at 85 Varick Street \u2013 \u201ca curiously small edifice,\u201d according to the New York Times \u2013 at
\nits junction with Canal, on Manhattan\u2019s west side, that Steinweg built the first piano to carry the Steinway & Sons name. Bearing the number 483 \u2013 the previous 482 pianos had been made in Germany under the Steinweg name \u2013 it was sold for $500.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to Richard K Lieberman\u2019s history Steinway & Sons (1995), in its first year of
\nbusiness Steinway produced 11 pianos, handmade by the family with each member making a specific part. They were not yet grands \u2013 the first Steinway grand was built in 1856 \u2013 but square pianos: Steinweg is credited with making his first – a present for his bride – in 1835, and they were owned by everyone from Franz Liszt to Jane Austen and George Washington.<\/p>\n
In 1854, Steinway moved east along Canal to establish new premises at 82-88 Walker Street, just east of Broadway. Today it\u2019s Chinatown but back then it was New York City\u2019s piano row \u2013 indeed, the building had previously been home to Nunns & Clark, piano makers who had come to the US from Britain in the 1830s and to whom Heinrich\u2019s sons Charles and William had been apprenticed. \u201cSteinway Pianos\u201d was painted on the side of the building, which was occupied rent-free for the first six months of the Steinwegs\u2019 tenure. (The family name would not be officially anglicised until 1864.) In their first weeks of operation there, the Steinwegs and their five assistants produced two pianos a week, though three were needed to meet demand.<\/p>\n
The following year, 1855, the Steinwegs decided to enter a competition at the American
\nInstitute Exhibition, their goal to build a piano better than anything heard before. The casing was free of the sort of ornamentation that characterised pianos of the day and the judges were not impressed \u2013 until they heard the sound it produced. A reporter noted its \u201cgreat power of tone, a depth and richness in the bass, a full mellowness in the middle register and brilliant purity in the treble.\u201d The year following the Exhibition, Steinway sales tripled to 208.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s value was calculated at $24,000 \u2013 more than four times what it had cost to
\nstart the business. By 1858, that figure had been tripled. Both sales and showroom space
\ndoubled.<\/p>\n
The emergence of an American middle class boosted the demand for pianos so the
\nSteinwegs rented stores on Mercer and Crosby streets (now SoHo), plus a lumber yard on
\n23 rd Street. But demand soon outstripped supply: piano-making required a good deal of
\nspace and land downtown was at a premium. Thus, in 1858, William Steinweg acquired
\ncheaper land uptown, between Park and Lexington at 52 nd and 53 rd Streets, where a 175,000 square-foot, five-story architect-designed factory was built.<\/p>\n
It opened in 1864, the same year as what the Times described as \u201ca new and magnificent
\nmarble wareroom\u201d at 109 East 14 th Street, \u201cthe handsomest\u201d in the city which combined
\nmagnificent showrooms with studios for musicians. Two years later, the foundation stone
\nwas laid for an adjoining concert hall with space for a full orchestra and an audience of
\n2,500. William Steinway remarked: \u201cOne concert on Saturday night sells pianos on Monday
\nmorning.\u201d Over the years, many celebrated musicians would perform at Steinway Hall,
\namong them pianist Anton Rubinstein, soprano Christina Nilsson and conductor Walter
\nDamrosch.<\/p>\n
Steinway Hall was also used for lectures: in 1867 and \u201968, readings by Charles Dickens had In the 1870s, work began on Steinway Village in Queens – a factory plus homes and
\ncitizens lining up round the block.<\/p>\n![\"Buying](\"http:\/\/www.thevillagetrip.com\/festival\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Steinway_Hall_New_York_1867.jpg\")
\namenities for workers \u2013 in Astoria, where it remains. In 1925 Steinway Hall was relocated to
\nWest 57 th Street, across from Carnegie Hall. It is now at Sixth Avenue and 43 rd Street, next to Town Hall.<\/p>\n