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Hotel Pianists Have Feelings, and Blogs Too

Where: 365 Park Ave S, At 26th Street, [map], New York, ny, United States, 10016

[Update 2.8.07: The blog has been removed from Blogspot, so we have removed the now broken link.]

We stumbled across a lovely little blog called the Hotel Pianist, written from the perspective of a female pianist in her early 30s who makes a living playing a baby grand in the small lobby bar of an NYC hotel. She doesn't reveal her locale, but with just the tiniest bit of Web research we were able to figure out her not-so-secret venue--Hotel Giraffe.

It's not easy being a hotel pianist. You are usually invisible, but if you are seen at all, it's usually as an object of ridicule. And in one of life's great ironies, a musician is often paid more to play music that people don't listen to than music they do.

There's a wealth of stories here about crappy guests, weirdos who wander in everyday and people with annoying requests. Even staff members--clueless bartenders and bellhops who keep the door open so cold air blows in--get on this pianist's nerves. Posts to look forward to are the "Comment of the Night" posts like this one: "'Look, someone's actually going to play that thing,' said one particularly enlightened guest when I sat down on the piano bench after a break." And personnel changes where she details which clueless bartender was hired and which annoying bellhop was fired.

Of course, after reading nearly every blog post posted over the past year, we were desperate to figure out what hotel this pianist was playing at. Suffice to say, there is a way of determining the hotel based on a post she made last summer. So the next time you are strollling down Park Ave South or hitting up dinner at Dos Caminos, pop into the Hotel Giraffe and show some appreciation for this hotel pianist. She deserves it after dealing with Trumpet Nose and requests from the musical "Annie."

Related Stories:
· Hotel Giraffe review [TripAdvisor]