Monday, August 15, 2011

The origin of Steinway Street


As you may guess, Steinway Street is named after William Steinway, one of the co-founders of Steinway & Sons piano company (he was one of the sons).  Steinway built a company town for producing pianos in none other than Astoria back in the 1870s!  While the company was founded in Manhattan, they grew so quickly that they needed more space so they purchased 400 acres of what is now Astoria and built Steinway Village, which had a large piano factory and everything else a company town would need (housing, library, school, etc.).  The factory is still in use today and offers limited tours, which I am hoping to take advantage of sometime soon!  Upon William's death, Astorians decided to rename Main Street to Steinway Street.


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