7 ms·
Moving a piano in New York city
- gist 7y agoArticles says that moves are 'rarely less than $350'. The question is really what did this 5 man move cost? What, if any, were the other bids? Realize NYT is not a business angle but would be nice to know.
- jdavis703 7y agoThe article contains the number of moves they do per day. It includes the number of movers needed. It includes the typical wage of these movers. From some back of the napkin calculations wages were probably at least $400. The moving company is also going to charge for the truck, gas and “overhead.” Then there are fees for stairs. Then you have to tip the 6 men. And lastly don’t forget the moving company needs to make some profit. I could imagine this is easily $1000.
- rozab 7y agoWhile I admire the vision of that webpage, it was really a pain on mobile (Firefox android).
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoI wish the NYT would cut it out with this super interactive article format. It might make sense for some (very limited) set of things, but a photo album is not one of them
- gist 7y agoThe photos aren't really even that good perspective wise or documentation wise. They could have had little go pros tacked up all over the hallway and pulled video and frames that would have put together a better account. (Not that it would help them sell more ads etc but the presentation to your point isn't that good given what it could be).
- imglorp 7y agoThis would have been much better as an NYT video. Their video team does a bangup job. It would have been interesting to watch how the movers handled that corner in realtime.
- _bxg1 7y agoThe vertical swiping to scroll horizontally on mobile was particularly confusing. Needs a visual indicator at least
- bootlooped 7y agoThe majority of the ones I've seen are great, some of them make me amazed with how far the web has come. I agree though this one is just like, why?
- clSTophEjUdRanu 7y agoThis is why I prefer their print newspaper. No ads, no clickbait, no interactive bs.
- throwsprtsdy 7y agoThe New York Times doesn't have ads in its printed edition anymore?
- reaperducer 7y agoI wish the NYT would cut it out with this super interactive article format. It might make sense for some (very limited) set of things, but a photo album is not one of them It's probably tailored for the NYT app. The Times is one of the few real journalism sources willing to try new things. When they do, the HN crowd says The Times crap. When they don't, the HN crowd says The Times a relic and should die. I'm a subscriber, and happy that it's at least trying. Some of the visualizations and AR stories are remarkable.
- jessriedel 7y agoI've seen the NYT praised in the HN top-level comment for neat digital article features multiple times. This might just not be one of those times.
- com2kid 7y agoIt works really well on desktop! Seriously it was a cool experience, held the down arrow on my keyboard and virtually walked down flights of stairs. I'm not sure how well it'd worked on a portrait display!
- rnotaro 7y agoPersonally, it gave me motion sickness and a headache.
- kick 7y agoIt degrades gracefully, just turn JavaScript off.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoHm, I had it turned on for NYT since it would break a bit ago, but it seems to degrade properly here. I'll poke around and see if NYT is now usable with JS disabled.
- rgovostes 7y agoThe scrolling is like going down stairs. Get it?
- joncp 7y agoThat site is a hot mess on mobile
- iso947 7y agoDid they take off all the handles? And the thing that holds the candles? https://youtu.be/Ge_4SlJWfl0 https://youtu.be/Ge_4SlJWfl0
- spectramax 7y agoTo all designers: Present your website as if its a piece of paper on your desk. It is rectangular, it has a specific size and it can be manipulated by the standard means that the browser provides (scroll). You can have different sized papers for different screens. What if every book you buy is one of those origami popup castles that explode upon opening a book? That would get pretty frustrating to read and understand the book. What if some pages move and shuffle unpreditably? What if it autoplays music without user invoking anything? That's essentially what you're doing with websites. What are they teaching in Design universities these days?
- azinman2 7y agoAs mentioned above, it’s supposed to mimic stairs.
- spectramax 7y agoWhy?
- danso 7y agoBecause a core theme in this story is the difficulty of moving heavy objects up and down stairs. I agree the web implementation is clunky (in a way that doesn't aid the overall reading experience) but I do see what they were trying for.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- itsangaris 7y agoGreat, now I feel nauseous.
- ehsankia 7y agoHow much of this is really specific to NYC? Not sure if it's just the NYT an their NY centric view, but most of the stuff shown and talked about seem to be about moving pianos in general, and not about NYC.
- azinman2 7y agoMost other places will have a mix of high rise and low rise, tight spaces and plenty of space. NYC tends to be mostly tight and high.
- reaperducer 7y agoIt's a New York-based publication with most of its circulation and staff in New York, founded in New York by New Yorkers, headquartered in the NEW YORK Times building, and has "New York" in its title, and you complain about it having a New York-centric view? It's a feature, not a bug.
- tambre 7y agoHe's rather asking what's specific about this to New York city.
- ehsankia 7y agoThe HN headline seems to have been modified, away from the actual headline: "The Miracle of Moving a Piano in New York City". If I wrote an article with the headline "The Miracle of building a chair in Hawaii", and then described the normal process of building a chair which is location agnostic, wouldn't you bewildered as to why I included "Hawaii" in the headline? I understand that they are based in NYC, I just don't understand why that's relevant enough to be in the headline. "The miracle of moving a piano" would've done just fine.
- mlazos 7y agoWas the reason this article was posted because of the horrible ux? I found that way more interesting than the article tbh.
- nprz 7y agoHow is this going over so many peoples heads? It's intentionally clunky and confusing, much like moving a grand piano up several flights of stairs would be.
- jariel 7y agoThe flow of the article moves like going down 'stairs' i.e. awkwardly moving something. For once, their rubbish UI is justified.
- programd 7y agoCompare and contrast the NYT article to the sublime beauty of a classic in the genre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s4nVg_W_6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s4nVg_W_6Y
- adrianmonk 7y agoSince we're on piano moving war stories, there is a messy ongoing case in Dallas. http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/11-26-19-preston-tower-grand-piano-lawsuit/ http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/11-26-19-preston... Decades ago, a man had a large grand piano moved into his condo. It had to ride on top of the elevator. Recently, he moved out of that unit and found that the city building codes no longer allow this. Then a bunch of complicated drama happened with the former condo owner, the condo management, and a piano moving company, and it all turned into a lawsuit.
- quickthrowman 7y agoIt’s even worse than that, there’s a freight elevator in the building, but the other moving companies were either not told about it or not allowed to use it. The company that ended up moving the piano used the freight elevator. All of this could’ve been solved long before by just using the freight elevator, perhaps there’s more to this story?
- mkhpalm 7y ago> perhaps there’s more to this story I think so. Consider that Marcus was one of the owners of the building for many years. Why didn't he tell them about a freight elevator if that was an option?
- adrianmonk 7y agoYeah, there has to be some info missing. What I don't understand is why they didn't use the freight elevator years ago.
- mkhpalm 7y agoI think its good to read this story knowing up front the HOA managed to find somebody to move the piano within a couple days.
- reaperducer 7y agoDecades ago, a man had a large grand piano moved into his condo. It had to ride on top of the elevator. Recently, he moved out of that unit and found that the city building codes no longer allow this. In Chicago, this was still done as recently as six years ago. When I moved into a tall residential building, my move had to be scheduled with an hour window in the middle so someone could move a piano up to a high floor. They wouldn't allow the piano to ride on top of the elevator and my stuff inside the elevator at the same time.
- Waterluvian 7y agoAt what point does a grand piano become a fixture rather than a chattel? I unboxed a foam king mattress at my new house once it was in the bedroom. It is literally impossible to get it out of that room without destroying it or I guess putting a hole in the outer wall.
- Yetanfou 7y agoA large bag and a vacuum cleaner might help in getting it back to a more manageable size, especially if you roll it up before applying the vacuum.
- jedberg 7y ago> "The movers are here to protect the piano, not the hallway.” I don't know about you, but I like it when my movers protect my stuff and the walls.