Andrew Iadarola with the Downtown Kamloops crew preps the new red piano for its debut on the corner of Third Avenue and Victoria Street.
(GLYNN BROTHEN / iNFOnews.ca)
July 21, 2015 - 11:30 AM
RED IS THE NEW BLUE
KAMLOOPS - There’s a new piano on the corner of Third Avenue and Victoria Street, but this one will look a little different.
The Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association worked to find a replacement after a vandal destroyed the blue piano of Downtown Kamloops earlier this month. Tanya Orozco with the association says she and fellow staff members received an ‘overwhelming response.'
"People were just emailing us and Facebooking us and calling us with all these offers of pianos,” she says. “We had people dropping in all day, too. We probably had six or seven piano offers."
Association members decided on an offer from a local couple who offered a piano they no longer used. Orozco says they had to turn others down because some offered antique instruments in pristine condition.
“Some of the pianos were way too nice to be on the street. One was a 100-year-old mahogany piano in perfect condition,” she says. “We understand public pianos are awesome but it will get wrecked eventually."
Which is what happened to the former blue piano when a man decided to take out his frustrations on it. Several hammers were broken and multiple keys no longer make a sound. The association planned to haul it away but decided to repurpose it as a flower planter half a block down the road from the new glossy red one. Orozco says staff plan to finish the final coat of red paint today, July 21, and the new piano should be ready for entertaining tomorrow, just in time for the Merchants Market to take over downtown.
"It’s been pretty interesting. The amount of people who stop and want to talk about the piano is crazy. They want to tell you how sorry they are about the old (one),” she says. “We didn’t even know people liked it that much."
The vandalized blue piano was repurposed as a flower planter and sits half a block from its old location on Victoria Street.
(GLYNN BROTHEN / iNFOnews.ca)
To contact a reporter for this story, email Glynn Brothen at gbrothen@infonews.ca, or call 250-319-7494. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2015