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Patrick Freeman, a freelance artist, was chosen to paint the baby grand in the south wing of
the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. The piano is on loan from the nonprofit Sing
for Hope.
Credit
Credit
Christian Hansen for The New York Times
By James Barron
• Oct. 18, 2016

•
 • 




Inside the Port Authority Bus Terminal — New York City’s “most hated
building,” according to the website Failed Architecture — are myriad gates
for arrivals and departures at different times, more than 25 places that
serve food and drinks of different strengths, and a couple of cash
machines that dispense bills of different denominations.

Now the terminal’s latest amenity, the word “latest” implying that there is
more than one, is a baby grand piano.

Until Tuesday, it was a secret, right there in plain sight in the south wing.
The Port Authority would not officially acknowledge its existence, even
though thousands of commuters were riding by on the escalators next to
where it was placed on Oct. 7.

It is an incongruity, a curved shape in a terminal that is mostly long lines

and sharp angles, 500 pounds of living-room furniture in a place where
the prevailing style is Late Rush Hour. Something pleasing to look at and
listen to not far from where garbage cans are sometimes set up to catch
water from leaky ceilings when it rains.