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CHRIS ROBERTS: There's a weathered, mint green upright piano on the corner of Ford Parkway and Cleveland Avenue. It sits under a garden tree canopy with concrete benches on either side. Painted tropical birds are perched on its front panel. Not to be snide, but this isn't some passive fiberglass Snoopy statue waiting for a photo-op. It's an 80-plus-year-old musical instrument with a history of touching souls and lifting spirits. Now, it's battling traffic, commerce, and the elements on a bustling intersection.

KELSEY SHANESY: The first question I always get is, what are you going to do when it rains?

CHRIS ROBERTS: Project Coordinator Kelsey Shanesy of Keys 4/4 Kids answered that question long before the pianos hit the streets. She has them covered with tarps when it rains, and some are even positioned under overhangs. But this isn't about putting pianos outside to see if you can keep them dry. It's about sharing music in a city square from one citizen's fingertips to another's, or as Shanesy puts it, creating moments of spontaneous community.

KELSEY SHANESY: It has this magnetic effect, hearing music, hearing live acoustic music in a public space. And people who are coming to listen would never, I think, stop at a street corner, maybe otherwise, take that moment out of their day.

CHRIS ROBERTS: While Shanesy is talking, a man slowly makes his way across the nearby Barnes & Noble parking lot. He sits down on the piano bench and stares out at the stores across the street. William Manuel stops by this corner pretty regularly. When Manuel saw the piano for the first time, he felt a rush of memories.

WILLIAM MANUEL: It brought me back to Sydney in my mother's living room and looking at her piano and playing it. It just made my mind just roam. It made me just think about what I'm going to be going through today and it, like, ease my fears to see a piano sitting on the corner. It'll let me know that the area is not so wicked, so bad, you know what I'm saying? It made me want to close my eyes and make a wish.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Manuel is an unemployed furniture upholsterer originally from Indiana. He's lived in St. Paul for 13 years. He says his days are like pulling a lawn mower cord, they go up and down. Today, he stopped by the Barnes & Noble Starbucks for a glass of milk. He fiddles with a crumpled Styrofoam cup and rubs his eyes and puts his hands on the keys and starts to pick out some notes, he says describe his day so far.

[PIANO NOTES]

WILLIAM MANUEL: I got a picture in my mind.

CHRIS ROBERTS: For Manuel, stopping by the piano is like going to church. He says it puts sympathy in him, gives him hope, makes him feel like people care. It triggers a lot of pent up emotions.

WILLIAM MANUEL: I'm glad you're interviewing me, give me a chance to get it out because I was talking to myself when I first saw it. And it was all just building up inside. So I'm glad I got a chance to get it out. You got to get it out because if you doesn't, it'll tear you up inside if you don't get it out.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Manuel delivers a few "God blesses" and walks north up Cleveland Avenue. By now, a few people have gathered, including an older man in a ball cap. He bellies up to the keyboard like he's been waiting all morning to play.

HARVEY ROTHMAN: I was passing by, and I just-- I got off the bus for half an hour. And I'll hop on the bus again in about a half an hour. But I'm going to play it for a while.

CHRIS ROBERTS: 68-year-old Harvey Rothman has found a vacation oasis in this little piano alcove. He's a retired architect from Northern California, spending the summer in St. Paul with his grandkids. Rothman has become a regular on this corner, sharing melodies and pieces he's created over 30 years of playing with other hobby pianists.

HARVEY ROTHMAN: First guy that I saw, he played some nice things for me. I enjoyed it. And then I played some nice things for him. It's a very social thing, this piano. And it's encouraged me to play in public.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Rothman turns and faces the mint green upright.

HARVEY ROTHMAN: I'll do this one. This is dedicated to John Lennon.

[PIANO NOTES]

CHRIS ROBERTS: While Rothman concentrates on his John Lennon tribute, a wiry teenager with a bush of brown hair shows up. And you realize he's been popping in and out all morning. 15-year-old Andy Broadnax lives about a block away and thinks the piano has changed his neighborhood.

ANDY BROADNAX: This piano out here just reminds me of New Orleans because I went there over spring break, and there was just music everywhere. And just, there's music in the air. There's sunshine. What's not to love?

CHRIS ROBERTS: Broadnax has been taking piano lessons for the past year at Walker West Music Academy in St. Paul. He says he's drawn to the camaraderie and fellowship the piano seems to bring out in people.

ANDY BROADNAX: You know, if you don't know someone and you hear them playing piano, you can go sit down and listen and have a talk with them, meet new people, hear new styles. I even had a couple of friends who said they came down here with a snare drum and a trumpet and someone sang. So you could start a little band right here all day if you wanted.

[PIANO NOTES]

CHRIS ROBERTS: Broadnax rolls out a bottom heavy gospel number. and you can hear the Walker West style in his jazz-inflected chords.

[PIANO NOTES]

While he bangs the keys, a middle-aged woman pulling a wheeled suitcase strolls by, stops, and looks on. Ellen Martin, a jazz singer, has just arrived from New York here to visit her saxophonist boyfriend. She sees the piano, and it reminds her of home. New York started a similar public piano project last summer called Play Me, I'm Yours.

ELLEN MARTIN: I used to think that only that thing happened in New York City. But apparently, it's happening right here in St. Paul and all over. I mean, it's really great.

CHRIS ROBERTS: With a little coaxing, Martin and Broadnax agree to perform together. They picked something Broadnax played a little earlier, What A Wonderful World. It's not in Martin's key, but she adapts.

ELLEN MARTIN: OK, I'll start at the beginning.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Martin taps the screen of a borrowed iPhone as she reads and then sings the lyrics.

["WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD" PLAYING] I see trees of green

Red roses too

I see them bloom

For me and you

And I say to myself

What a wonderful world

CHRIS ROBERTS: Just another Pianos on Parade moment of spontaneous community on the corner of Ford Parkway and Cleveland Avenue in St. Paul. Chris Roberts, Minnesota Public Radio News.

ELLEN MARTIN (SINGING): Bright, blessed days

And dark sacred nights

And I say to myself

What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow

So pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces

Of people going by

I see friends shaking hands

Saying, how do you do?

All they're really saying

Is I love you

I see babies cry

I watch them grow

I've learned much more

Than I'll ever know

And I say to myself

What a wonderful world

And I say to myself

What a wonderful world

Singing that for my partner, James [INAUDIBLE] who is a tenor titan here in the Twin Cities.