MIAMI – The rumors can stop swirling: The baby grand piano that turned up on a Miami sandbar was ruined by New Year’s revelers, then brought to its new home by a television designer’s teenage son who said Thursday he hoped the idea might help him get into a prestigious art school.

And now, it has been removed.

Captain John Nicholson with Biscayne Towing and Salvage said the piano was taken away. Florida wildlife officials had wanted it gone within 24 hours — or else the teenager and his parents could have faced face felony dumping charges.

Theories of the instrument’s origin had abounded, with some saying they saw helicopters and television crews hovering around the piano. Others tried to claim responsibility, but Nicholas Harrington, 16, had his endeavor on videotape.

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. And if it helped the high school junior get into Manhattan’s Cooper Union college, that would be OK, too.

“I wanted to create a whimsical, surreal experience. It’s out of the everyday for the boater,” Harrington said.

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On Jan. 2, Harrington, his older brother Andrew and two neighbors lifted the instrument, which had been trashed during a holiday party, onto the family’s boat and took it out on Biscayne Bay. There, they left it on the highest spot along a sandbar.

Harrington is the son of “Burn Notice” production designer J. Mark Harrington. The piano is an old movie prop that sat for four years in Harrington’s grandmother’s garage.

The teenager said he grew up in a family that appreciated art and architecture, and he had his parents’ support for his scheme. “The weirdness of it all just comes easily,” he said.

The piano sat undisturbed in the bay until last week, when Suzanne Beard, a local resident, took her boat over to the sandbar to take a look. Her picture of pelicans roosting on the instrument ended up on the National Geographic website. From there, the story went viral, much to Harrington’s surprise.

“We pretty much forgot about it until it became super popular,” the teenager said.

 


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