I'm one of the few experienced roll player techs in the New York
Metropolitan Area. I have several customers who use their player
pianos to make money for their businesses and institutions.

One of the local school districts, Kings Park, New York, dedicated
one-half of an elementary school for a museum.  Some of the things
the kids love the most are the reed organs and the player piano --
they call it the "ghost piano!"

Farms have largely vanished from Long Island, but Benners Farms has
found a way to make money: school districts pay them to host field
trips for the kids. In addition to barnyard animals they have a really
nice player piano in their Dance Barn where they serve lunch and
entertain the kids.

The arts councils put on traditional music performances and as an
added bonus they also get a player piano concert.  The woman who plays
piano background for Ken Burns documentaries performed there recently.

This _really_ "high end" art gallery in Chelsea Manhattan uses a nice
tiger oak Recordo player piano as an elaborate sculpture conglomeration.
I restored it when it got badly damaged in Hurricane Sandy.

Aldo Mancusi runs the Enrico Caruso Museum in Brooklyn.  Aldo is a
world renowned expert on Caruso.  He says he has more Caruso artifacts
than they do in Italy, and I believe it!  Aldo has a nickelodeon and
a player piano as part of the tour.

"Hope's Land of Candy" in Island Park -- right out of the 1950s with
a soda counter, et cetera -- just started karaoke night with their
player piano (bring your own booze!).

And there is a very popular bar in trendy Park Slope, Brooklyn,
where the customers are mostly "hipsters" in their '20s, '30s and
'40s.  They _love_ old jazz of the 1920s and '30s but also mostly with
a modern twist.  They want me to find them a nice affordable player
piano.  I will do that.

I service a player piano in a bed and breakfast way out on Long Island's
"North Fork."  I am handing out AMICA brochures and promoting the 2016
AMICA convention in New Jersey.  The Lady Liberty Chapter has three
young people -- one 15, the others are early 20s -- who show amazing
potential.  We are supporting and grooming them best we can.  Glenn
Thomas and Vincent Morgan can't say enough about the job they have
done!

Bill Maguire