Good morning. It's Thursday. Today we'll look at what happened to the keys on a concert pianist's piano when he moved to New York from Paris. We'll also look at what Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election might mean for New York City.
Julian Gargiulo is a piano man without a piano right now. A concert pianist and composer who moved to New York in August after spending almost 10 years in Paris, he refers to himself as "the pianist with the hair." His makes Howard Stern's look almost tame. Before leaving Europe, Gargiulo arranged for a moving company to ship his piano, a Steinway grand that he has had since he was 14 years old. It arrived at Port Newark and was sent to a warehouse, where it remained until the keys were removed. Gargiulo's piano had ivory keys — keys that are actually made of wood, with thin pieces of ivory attached. Gargiulo said that the federal Fish and Wildlife Service had refused to allow him to claim the piano as long as the ivory coverings were on the keys. The agency told Gargiulo that they violated a ban on importing ivory. Gargiulo said the agency was following the letter of the law but ignoring its spirit. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that blocking a pianist from shipping his piano as part of his household move back to the United States is not what the ivory ban was ever intended for," Gargiulo said. A Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on specific cases. Gargiulo said he has spent nearly $10,000, first to pay the warehouse that the government sent the piano to, then to pay a second warehouse, where the piano was eventually moved and now remains. And there have been other expenses. "I'm not made of money," he said, "but the emotional toll has been massive." Gargiulo's tale seems to turn on paperwork that he did not know he needed until it was too late. He said he had told the moving company in Europe that the piano had ivory keys. Gargiulo says it "was probably not a good idea" to say what the keys were made of. He simply could have not mentioned it. Or, he said, he could have had the keys removed in Europe and carried them in his luggage. "But that would have seemed like I was really doing something illegal," he said. A U.N.-backed moratorium on ivory imports was announced in 1989, and a near-total ban on trade in elephant ivory in the U.S. took effect in 2016 as officials tried to counter the slaughter of elephants. To ship a piano with ivory keys to the U.S., the importer must identify what species of elephant the keys came from and file other documentation, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Until the 1989 ban took effect, all the Steinways built in the company's plant in Hamburg, Germany — where Gargiulo's piano was made — had ivory keys. So did concert grands and slightly smaller "music room grands" made at Steinway's factory in Astoria, Queens. The keyboards came from what was then an independent company that supplied a variety of piano makers. The Fish and Wildlife Service says elephant ivory may be imported as long as it was removed from the wild before early 1976 — but if it is a musical instrument, it must have a valid instrument certificate. That would confirm that the ivory used by the keyboard company had been harvested at least 48 years ago. "It absolutely would have been," a Steinway spokesman said. Gargiulo obtained documentation from Steinway & Sons showing when the piano was manufactured. But the Steinway spokesman said the keyboard maker apparently did not have records from that long ago. Still, Steinway gave Gargiulo a letter saying that his piano predated the 1989 cutoff. "In the past," the Steinway spokesman said, "that has always been sufficient." Gargiulo said his father had bought the piano in 1987, when he was an Army officer stationed in Italy, and that his mother had heard him compose a sonata called "From the Window" on it shortly before she died in 2020. His parents "certainly could never have imagined that one day I would be treated like an ivory poacher, trying to illegally import his piano into the country," Gargiulo said. He arranged for a Steinway piano technician to remove the ivory coverings from the keys, a process that took several hours with an official from the Fish and Wildlife Service standing by, collecting each piece of ivory as it came off. The keys will eventually get new plastic tops, another expense. For now, though, the instrument remains in the warehouse in New Jersey, unplayed, not because of federal regulations but New York reality: The apartment Gargiulo plans to move into is being renovated. The project is dragging on. He now hopes to move in January. WEATHER The sky will be mostly cloudy, then gradually become sunny, with a high near 75 and a calm-to-moderate breeze. Tonight, the sky will turn clear with a low in the high 40s. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Monday (Veterans Day). How the election will play out in New York
From the Blue Room at City Hall to break rooms across the city, a question on many people's minds after the election was what Donald Trump's victory might mean for New York City. Trump has promised to take a harder line on recent migrant arrivals and to halt congestion pricing. The new Trump administration could also be at odds with city officials on climate change, health care and affordable housing. But Mayor Eric Adams played up the possibilities of collaboration, saying that he would work with Trump to advance the city's interests while protecting vulnerable New Yorkers. A closer look at the voting in largely Democratic New York showed a noticeable rightward shift, especially among Asian voters and Hispanic voters in Queens and the Bronx. With 2 percent of the vote still to be counted, Trump had received 786,000 votes in New York City. In 2020, he got 692,000. Trump still has a court date on Nov. 26 for sentencing in the criminal case that centered on a hush-money payment to the porn actress Stormy Daniels. But his lawyers are expected to ask the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, to delay sentencing indefinitely. Election Day brought a footnote related to Trump's civil fraud case, in which the judge handed down a $454 million judgment: The judge's law clerk during the trial, Allison Greenfield — whom Trump and his allies repeatedly attacked — was elected a judge herself. She was the top vote-getter among six candidates for civil court in Manhattan. The latest Metro news
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Dear Diary: I was sitting and reading in Bryant Park on a Sunday when a sparrow landed on a chair in front of me. It cocked its tiny head and, after showing its gold-flecked feathers, darted off. Suddenly, a high, clear bird song pierced the air. Wondering if it could be the sparrow, I scanned the trees but didn't see any birds. Just then, a park worker walked by pushing a large bin. His lips were stretched tightly across his teeth and moving almost imperceptibly. Intrigued, I stood up and glanced over at him as he passed. He caught my eye and gave me a nod. I nodded back. Then the Bird Man of Bryant Park continued on down the path, whistling his song into the trees. — Leslie Noble Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Makaelah Walters and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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N.Y. Today: The pianist without a piano
November 07, 2024
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