Mystery of the Sandbar Piano Solved

Not too shockingly, it was an art stunt, courtesy of Nicholas Harrington
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 27, 2011 11:55 AM CST
Mystery of the Sandbar Piano Solved
Nicholas Harrington on a dock in his back yard, Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011. Harrington, seeking to boost his art school application, took a bow today for being behind the grand piano on a sandbar.   (Wilfredo Lee)

Good grades just aren't enough to get you into a top-notch college these days. So Nicholas Harrington took a different route. The 16-year-old has stepped forward as the brains and (part of the) brawn behind the baby grand piano that mysteriously appeared on a sandbar off the coast of Miami—and he has a video to prove it. The high school junior told the AP he hoped the stunt would help him get into Manhattan's Cooper Union, a prestigious art college.

On Jan. 2, Harrington, his older brother, and two neighbors lifted the instrument onto the family's 22-foot boat and took it out on Biscayne Bay, leaving it on the sandbar's highest spot. He had planned to remain anonymous—save for the photos that would make up part of his college application—but then other people started taking credit for the feat. Harrington said he wanted to leave his artistic mark on Miami's seascape as the artist Christo did in the early 1980s when he draped 11 small islands in Biscayne Bay with hot pink fabric. "I don't like it be considered as a prank," he said. "It's more of a movement."
(More Nicholas Harrington stories.)

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