Joe Curry, 21, posted an ad on craigslist.com that said: "PIANO! TAKE IT OR IT'S TRASH," the newspaper said. Curry said he noticed he wasn't the only one trying to get rid of an old piano.

"So many people are trying to get rid of them," he said.

Paul Murphy, president of the piano dealership M. Steinert and Sons, which began as a manufacturer, said there's a reason there were so many piano makers in the city.

"I think it's because Boston was a mature city," Murphy said. "And the institutions of higher learning were here as well."

The newspaper said even in the poorest neighborhoods, people had pianos.

"Everyone had a parlor upright piano instead of a TV," said Jude Reveley, of Absolute Piano Restoration in Lowell, Mass.

"You put on your headphones or your iPod, and everything is more introverted," Reveley said, "whereas before it was linked to the community."