New Yorkers are Wading into the East River to Play a Broken Piano

No one expects to find good things floating ashore from the East River. Separating mainland Manhattan from New York's outer boroughs, the river is best known for its freezing temperature, its poor hygiene, and its propensity for housing dead bodies. At best, you might find some old fast food refuse; at worst, you become embroiled in a murder trial with the mob.

That was until this week when a mysterious grand piano emerged from the water. After being spotted on the Manhattan side of the river, under the Brooklyn Bridge, the piano became an instant hit on social media. New Yorkers showed no hesitation to wade on into the water and give it a spin, and it's basically become a rotating shoot site for Instagram users across the city.

Unfortunately (yet understandably) the piano no longer works as it's completely waterlogged. But to focus on that would be to miss the point. If a beautiful grand piano floating mysteriously in the world's nastiest river isn't contemporary art, I quite frankly don't know what is.

No details have emerged yet on the piano's origin, and in the absence of anything else we've come up with what we see as the most logical explanation. After a swift fall in album sales and overall relevancy sometime in the last decade, Vanessa Carlton threw her prized piano off the Brooklyn Bridge in a fit of super-human rage and strength.

We welcome other theories, but really this is the only thing that fits. Perhaps it's a marketing stunt for her return tour. If that's the case, can we push it back into the tide and forget this whole thing ever happened?

Via Gothamist. Lead photo credit: Lauren Yap. Instagram credits: chisophoto and laurenyap.