Pianos

Under bands of wood held tensely in place by the ceiling of the Steinway & Sons piano factory, 19 thin sheets of tulipwood are pressed into one uniform piece. Behind the worktable, newspaper clippings from the sports page of an Italian newspaper scream soccer highlights.

Up the stairs and past workers from Bangladesh, India and Croatia, another workstation showcases articles about the New York Giants. In the employee locker room on the same floor, a makeshift shrine to the Yankees hangs at eye-level.

On each of the four floors composing the 40,000 sq ft. building, banners display the company motto: “We Are Family.”

But despite the eclectic taste in sports and mélange of ethnicities, none of the 450 employees that work at Steinway in Astoria need to be reminded that they are family; the average tenure of a worker is 15 years and many have been there for more than 30.

The company has provided steady employment for more than 150 years, relying heavily on the waves of immigration that continuously wash into New York’s harbors.

“First it was Germans, Italians, Yugoslavs and Russians. Now it’s India and Haiti,” said Dominic Iovino. “But it’s always been a family.”

“A Passion”

Iovino should know. During his 40 years as a tuner with the company, he has worked with two of his uncles and a cousin. And for many of those years, he tuned pianos side by side with Wally Boots. Boots, who grew up two blocks from the factory, has worked at Steinway for 46 years. So have three of his brothers.

“At first it was just a job,” Boots said. “Now it is a passion.”

The passion Boots speaks of is obvious — the factory is full of burly blue-collar men delicately crafting intricate parts and running their ruddy fingers over faux-ivory keys. It is the thread that connects workers, who hail from more than two dozen countries.

Talent Search

Though historically the factory provided a bellwether for immigration patterns in the Astoria, a recent influx of young professionals priced out of Manhattan has changed the neighborhood’s demographics. Steinway now relies on word-of-mouth — passed from cousins and uncles in America to relatives in villages all over the world — to find workers with the technical skills required to make one of Steinway’s iconic pianos.

“What we get are talented workers coming to us, either in woodcraft or in music,” said Leo Spellman, senior director of communications for Steinway.

In the small world where Boots and Iovino have sat together for decades, pictures cover the walls from ceiling to floor. It is impossible to tell where the photographs of family stop and those of colleagues begin. Leaning over the shiny lacquered top of a Steinway Grand, Boots proudly shows off the fringed American flag vest he wears while riding his motorcycle. Next to the vest is a calendar he recently made, each month featuring a fellow worker’s bike.

Looking on, Spellman smiled.

“The faces will change; the accents may change,” he said,”but the characters don’t.”

(Click here to read an interview with Henry Steinway)

Henry Steinway is the great-grandson of the Steinway & Sons founder and the last family member to lead the firm. Although he’s 92 and retired, Steinway still spends most mornings at the Steinway piano showroom on W. 57th Street in Manhattan.

What was it like growing up in the Steinway family?

I was one of six children. My mother was a Yankee. We were raised in the American Yankee manner. When I got out of college, 1937, it was the Depression. Then I said, “Should I try the piano business?” My old man said, “Sure.” So, I tried it.

I’m the inheritor, I can continue the tradition I guess. I have five children — some tried the business and didn’t like it. Now they are all over the country. So we sold it to CBS.

Can you talk about your family’s immigrant experience?

I don’t see myself as an immigrant. I was raised by a Yankee mother in an upper class New York way. I went to private schools, went to Harvard. I never thought of myself as “German-American, which I suppose I am.

In 1937, when I started, there were still many workers of German origin. Then the Italians came in. Roman Catholic Germans and Italians married so we had many issues at that time, then of course the Greeks moved into Astoria and now it’s the League of Nations out there.

Has Steinway employed a lot of immigrants over the years?

Lots of South Americans recently, but I can’t tell you from where. They work their way up gradually. Some are foreman and supervisors. Now it’s a pretty general group representing New York and Queens. I think I heard Queens is one of the most diverse areas — various types, Thai and Korean. So it’s a very international community.

Do you think Steinway provides immigrants with opportunity to live the American Dream?

They do and they always have. I remember years ago when someone would die and there was a local funeral home that was used by a lot of the workers. I would attend some of these wakes. You’d see this guy who was a worker in the plant and his two sons who were lawyers. I mean the upward mobility.

We do have a few father-to-son relationships still. The family name Drasche has three generations there. The most recent one started his own business fixing up pianos somewhere out in Queens. So it has always been a very interesting community.

How has it changed?

The employees naturally move off the island. That’s why we have that big parking lot. I remember we built that years ago. We’d study the license plates to see who lives where and by then about half of them had moved off the island. About 20 years ago.

In the old days, the Steinway Street trolley — which [was] one of the last in New York –
went across the Queensboro Bridge. I used to take it…. There was a track and I could get on there and go across the bridge to Steinway Street where the factory is. So that was the great means of transit for all the local people.

We were raised in Manhattan. My trips were to the Steinway mansion mostly. It was a lovely estate. About the early 20s, I couldn’t have been more than six, seven years old, they decided to sell it and my father was designated to clean out the stuff that was there so we’d sometimes go out and I remember playing around on the then-expansive grounds. Now it’s all wire fence and all that stuff. We didn’t have any close connection to Astoria other than that. I’m the last guy that’s intimately connected with the business.

Does that make you sad?

No. It’s the normal American story. And a very good story. The guy comes over here with an idea. The family runs it. Then I sold it to CBS in ‘72 and I haven’t regretted it for a minute even though CBS was going through all kinds of changes. So it’s a rather unique thing and I think it’s an American thing to be proud of because it’s gone through this typical American history of a family that was able to carry it on for a period of time, and then they put it in the hands, ultimately, of professional investors. And that’s the way to go. I’m happy with it.