Steinway Piano Factory – Queens, New York - Atlas Obscura

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Steinway Piano Factory

Piano-making empire filled with 200-year-old steam machines still churning out 1,000 instruments a year. 

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Deep in Astoria, Queens, sits the Steinway Piano Factory, one of the last remaining structures from the old Steinway Village.

Built in 1872 by the Steinway family to serve their rising piano empire, this 400-acre company town accommodated employees with their own amusement park, firehouses, schools, churches, horse-car railroads, and initiated the infrastructure of the 7 Train (then known as the Steinway Tube) and the Queensborough Bridge.

Today, the factory gives $20 tours from September through the end of June. They occur on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They run from 9:30 a.m. until noon. It still has 19th-century machines used to bend frames, people handmaking keys, and entire floors dedicated to wood incubators where materials are left for months at a time. The factory is responsible for the creation of over 2,000 grand pianos annually and is the only remaining piano factory in New York.

Know Before You Go

N, W to Astoria-Ditmars Blvd.; M to Steinway Street

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