Lee Munsick wrote in his reminiscences entitled "Too Big for Doorway
Golden Memory No. 1" about taking a piano apart to get it around a bend
in a flight of stairs.  This reminded me of a piano move during the
same 1970s period.

I located, through an antiques dealer in Fort Lee, NJ, what turned out
to be a Knabe Verti Grand with an Angelus Player that once had the
capability to play 88-note, 65-note, Themodist in both 65 and 88 note
and Knabe Angelus rolls.  It was in its original location on the second
floor of the home that had 12-foot high ceilings.

I asked a couple of my friends, Joe and Robert Hanulec and Fran Meyer,
to join me in this moving experience.  We arrived at the house full of
youthful enthusiasm.  The easy move we were anticipating, being there
were four of us, turned into reality when we walked into the house and
saw the flight of stairs rising after a left turn landing on the first
floor some twelve feet to the left turn landing on the second floor.

Once on the second floor we went through the doorway into the second
floor apartment and made a left into the living room and proceeded
towards the front of the house.  When we arrived at the front room we
made another left turn into a room where the piano, we were told, had
spent its entire life.

Resting on top of the piano was the original Knabe Angelus Catalog that
depicted this piano and gave all of it's specifications, including it's
weight.  We were amazed to find that this piano had an uncrated weight
of 650 pounds.  This was a real beast for an upright, in light of the
fact that we would each have to manhandle 162.5 pounds, give or take a
few ounces, to get it down to the street.

We decided to remove as much weight as we could to help get the piano
out without damaging it, the house, or us. :-)  We proceeded to remove
all the panels, top, upper player and piano action.  We loaded the
piano in its upright position onto a dolly and proceeded towards the
stairway.  All was going smoothly.

We arrived at the stairs removed the piano from the dolly and drew
straws as to who would stay on the upstairs side of the piano and who
on the downstairs side.  Joe Hanulec and I got the upstairs side while
Fran Meyer and Bob Hanulec took the downstairs side.

Then the potentially most easily damaged part of this fine Victorian
home loomed into view.  How had we missed it on our rush to get our
first look at this piano, I don't know.  There it was -- just two
steps down, to the first landing, and extending from  8" above that
landing (the height of the base board) to the ceiling above the landing
-- a magnificent, Tiffany style, stained glass window!

We stood in awe of its beauty and the potential danger it possessed.
The potential danger was not only to us, for we could be easily pushed
straight through this work of art by the piano in motion, thus ruining
our promising futures, but we possibly could damage this fine piano.
Well, we were young and full of vim and vigor, so we started down the
stairs.  That is when things went all wrong.

The piano could not make the turn around the newel post on the right
side of the stairs leading to the first floor.  We were dumb founded.
There was no way this piano could have ever come up these stairs, we
exclaimed in unison.

I guess the exuberance with which we exclaimed this jogged the memory
of the now previous owner.  She said, "Ah, now I recall the day it was
delivered.  All the people on the block came out to see the piano
movers rig the piano through the second floor window into the room from
where we had just removed it."

So now we knew we were right: the piano had never come up those stairs.

We proceeded to bring the piano back up into the living room of the
second floor apartment.  We then took out some folding rules and some
tape measures and went to work.  We measured the stair and landing
dimensions and the piano from every point.  We then hashed around any
number possible solutions, including putting the piano back together
and giving it back to the owner.

Rigging it out the window was never an option for us.  Number one, we
did not have the know how to do it.  Number two, adding possibly a
500-1000 cost to a $75.00 piano to have it removed through the window
professionally was ludicrous.

We decided to use some of the technique that Lee Munsick's piano
technician had used.  We removed the screws from the side blocks of the
keyboard support.  We found, as Lee's technician had, that piano makers
use glue in addition to the screws, to secure this support to the case
sides.

But we finessed it.  We used thin 1", 2", and 6" wide joint compound
taping knives, hammered gently from on top of the keyboard and from
beneath it, and with care we were able to separate the support blocks
from the case sides in less than 1/2 hour.

We then started to remove all of the remaining player and piano parts
from inside the piano, so that the case was completely empty except for
the harp.  Well, now to put our theory to work.  Could we get it down
the stairs where no piano had come before?  It seemed like it was "deja
vue" as we brought the piano out to the top of the stair landing.  This
time, though, we stopped and turned the piano upside down, so that the
top was down and the base was up.  We then assumed the same positions:
Bob Hanulec and Fran Meyer at the bottom (downstairs side) and Joe
Hanulec and I at the top (upstairs side).

What we hadn't considered was how unstable the piano would be with
all the weight of the base on top and it's cantilevered construction,
wanting to twist the case back to its normal position.  We had all we
could do to keep it from righting itself.  But we were committed, as
we now had the piano rounding the newel post at the top of the stair.
Our theory was working.  We continued to move the piano to the right
until the newel post was completely within the body of the case.  We
then straightened it out parallel with the stair sides.

The hard part was next.  We had to tip the piano so that the top of
the piano, which as you will remember was now down against the stair
carpet, would slide, but not too quickly, down the stairs.  We were not
only fighting the immense forces of gravity but it was acting against
us in two directions now.  First was the wracking force which now not
only wanted to upright the piano, but in the process of doing that it
would have taken us and itself over the right (open side of the stair)
stair railing.  Second is the force used by bobsledders to get to the
bottom of the hill that was the force we feared the most.

As I said earlier, we were young and none of these considerations
even crossed our minds -- we could do anything.  As we had successfully
tilted the piano onto the stairs it started to slide nicely.  We had it
all under control.  Just then the crew at the bottom yelled stop, which
Joe and I did automatically.  We had prearranged that whomever of us
felt the need to stop, Joe and I would immediately hold back at the top
while the others below would put their shoulders against the upright
case side and stay that way until we agreed to start again.

We agreed to a short rest period, each of us holding with all our might
the weight of the piano, as we rested.  When the call came to continue
the crew below removed their aching shoulders from the piano and
allowed Joe and I to relax our grip.  To our amazement the piano stood
exactly where we had left it.  It wouldn't budge.  It seems the bottom
front edge was wedged into the stair carpet.

To digress.  We found out later that both Fran Meyer and Bob Hanulec
had used so much force with their shoulders that they had blood
blisters all over the tops of their arms.  I can tell you we howled
with laughter thinking we needed to use all our strength to keep the
piano from sliding down the stairs when it was wedged and couldn't move
if it wanted.

Now back to the move.  Joe and I held back while Bob and Fran gave the
front a lift from the carpet and the instrument now glided nicely down
to the bottom platform.  Being we were now pros at rounding newel
posts, the bottom post presented no problem.  We no sooner rounded that
post then we had the piano back upright on a dolly and out the front
door.

That piano then went from there to my home in Upper Montclair, NJ, then
to our summer home in Aquebogue, LI, NY.  I gave it to Robert Hanulec
who said he would like to restore it.  Well, Bob never got around to
it.  A friend of Bob's brother, Joe Hanulec, Joe Hutter was the next
person to show an interest in the piano.  The piano was moved to Joe
Hutter's home where Joe restored both the piano and it's case to
magnificent condition.

The instrument has once again been moved to Joe Hutter's new home in
Belle Tiere, NY, where it plays as well as the day it left the factory.
It is a piano that is a part of all of us.  It will be a part of the
future now that Joe has given it a well deserved second life.

I would like to say here "Thank you" to Joe Hanulec, Bob Hanulec, Fran
Meyer for helping me save this fine Knabe Angelus almost 30 years ago,
and to Joe Hutter a thank you from all of us for your fine craftsmanship
that brought this instrument back to it's former grandeur.

Walt Kehoe