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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
New York's Present Retail Piano Trade Center.
Uptown Movement So Noticeable in All Lines of Trade Naturally Affected
Piano Industry, with the Result that the Changing Retail Center to
Upper Fifth Avenue Has Been Most Marked During the Last Six Years.
"The New York of a few years will be a vastly
different city from the New York of to-day. The
changes in transportation alone involve fabulous
sums, and may bring about changes in the seat of
retail trade."
The foregoing prophetic statement published in
The Music Trade Review of November 30, 11)07,
has certainly been fulfilled, and in a conclusive,
emphatic way that could hardly have been fully
realized seven years ago.
The seat of retail trade has changed totally since
the above prediction was made, and with this
by Fourteenth street on the south and Twenty-
third street on the north. Notwithstanding that
the heart of the district was in this half-mile area,
there were scattered in districts further north
several of the leading piano houses which had al-
ready seen the hand-writing on the wall, and had
located on streets which were then considered out
of the business district, and which could not hope
to prove profitable for at least ten years to come.
Among these pioneers in the movement northward
may be mentioned the Aeolian Co., which had lo-
cated in a beautiful building at Thirty-fourth street
Heart of Present New York Retail Piano District,
.No. 1—Lord & Taylor, corner 3Sth street.
Looking
North from
no retail warerooms being located along that thof-
oughfare. Transit facilities were all in favor of
this district as the heart of the retail center, as
there was then no Pennsylvania Terminal or Hud-
sou Tunnel to attract the trade further north-
ward, although work had already started on trans-
portation terminals and routes that warranted the
prophecy in the opening paragraph of this article.
Almost immediately following the June, 1908,
conventions of the various piano associations, there
was an apparent tendency on the part of the piano
manufacturers with warerooms in what was then
Thirty-eighth
Street and Fifth Avenue.
.)., 433 Fifth avenue.
No. 2 — lSeh ning 1'iano Co., 425 Fifth avenue. No. 3 llardman, I'eck ^ C<
avenue. No. 5—Forty-second street.
change of retail piano trade has come radical
changes in the retail centers of all high grade
mercantile lines that demonstrate that the local
retail piano trade is destined to keep pace with the
leading houses in every branch of local business life.
The piano dealer attending the convention next
month who has not been a visitor to New York
since the time of the last New York convention
in 1908, will find the piano retail district moved al-
most in its entirety a mile north. It will be not only
from a location standpoint, however, that the
dealer will notice a change in the New York re-
tail center, but also in the appearance of the build-
ings occupied by the leading houses at the present
time. Needless to say, these buildings show a vast
improvement over the structures occupied six years
ago both exteriorly and interiorly.
Six years ago the heart of the retail piano trade
was in the half-mile area on Fifth avenue bounded
and Fifth avenue; William Knabe & Co., who
then, as now. were occupying an imposing store at
the corner of Thirty-ninth street and Fifth ave-
nue; Pease Piano Co., which maintained its ware-
rooms at 128 West Forty-second street; Jacob Doll
& Sons, with warerooms at 116 West Forty-second
street, and M. Welte & Sons, Inc., 398 Fifth avenue.
The Old Retail Piano Center.
With the exceptions noted, practically the entire
retail trade w 7 as located along Fifth avenue, start-
ing at Fourteenth street and continuing northward
to Twenty-third street. Fourteenth street was one
of the most important shopping districts in the en-
tire retail trade, not alone the piano industry,
there being a number of prominent retail stores
on both sides of the street from Fourth to Sixth
avenues. Twenty-third street was by far the lead-
ing shopping cross-town street, although the piano
houses had not favored that street to any extent,
No. 4—Win. Knabe & Co., 437 Fifth
the heart of the retail piano trade to manifest an
interest in the possibilities of trade further north,
and suitable locations were soon being discussed
by the officials of the company. Leading houses
in other mercantile lines were possessed of the
same ideas about that time, and with transporta-
tion facilities becoming more and more in favor
nf a change, there was soon a steady northward
movement that has resulted in the present location
of the retail piano trade, and, in fact, the high
grade retail industry of other mercantile lines.
The present heart of the retail piano industry
must lie divided into two sections, as illustrated in
the accompanying photographs. Bo.th of these dis-
tricts are along Fifth avenue, and, as a whole, the
district is bounded by Twenty-ninth street on the
south and Forty-second street on the north. One-
half of the center of the retail piano district takes
(Continued on page 9.)