The Case of the Broken Bagpipe - A Love Story

I was on my way to bagpipe band practice at Kelly Ryan's Pub in the Bronx when the strap on my case broke and my pipes dropped in the street.


As a result, the ivory mount on my pre-World War I Henderson bagpipes broke. (They had been through TWO World Wars and I broke them walking up the street to to a pub?!!)

This is where the tail takes a turn. The traditional answer to this problem is to bring my pipes to a bagpipe mender, but I remembered overhearing this really nice French woman, Isabelle, who is in my Afro Jazz dance class mention that she works in restoration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


I told her my plight and asked her if she knew anybody who might be able to help me. She did. I gave her my card and she connected me to Beth Edelstein who is an Assistant Conservator at the Met and works in 3-D object restoration. (Meaning: NOT paintings, but everything else.) I wrote to her and she wrote a lovely e-mail back to me.

In the movie version of this it would have a "84 Charing Cross Road" vibe.

Okay this is the thing I LOVE about New York City. I know it can happen other places, but just not on this scale to me.

Let's recap: This poor broken down on his luck bagpiper trudging to practice one night drops the only thing of value in his life and it breaks. But meanwhile he takes an Afro Jazz dance class where he meets the exotic French dancer and former travelling performer to the great houses of Europe who happens to work in restoration at the world famous Met and she hooks him up with an expert in 3d restoration.

So I went through and met the superb Beth Edelstein. She is currently working on the reinstallation of the Islamic collection's Nur al-Din room, a Damascene period room dating to the early 18th century. (This is lifted from her website which I will plug on these very pages.)

She met me and took me BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MET. (It reminded me of going to the off-limits places in Disneyland when I was a kid and the bagpipe band was playing there.) Or, better yet, "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler."

OFF LIMITS DOORS. (the doors themselves date back to the early 1980s I am guessing)

She showed me the project she was working on and it is amazing! The Islamic section has been shut for about 3 years and will not open until 2011. Wow.

We discussed my piece and she told me about the research she did on my bagpipes (Impressive!!) and what kinds of adhesives she thought to use and about how ivory works. I was blown away at the detail and attention to it she had. My pipes were in good hands.


And if there is ever a movie version you could NOT cast a prettier, nicer restoration expert. Let's just hope they put her opposite someone younger than Tom Hanks.

Beth e-mailed me after the weekend and I came in today and picked it up. It was better than I could have imagined. She did a brilliant job.

She and a partner operate a side business of doing expert restoration. If anyone has anything they need fixed with expert care I recommend Beth highly. I think she also has the skill to talk you through emotionally! Her company is SBE Conservation. Check out the site. It is cool.


Beth with the finished piece.

And THIS story is another example of the magic of possibility in New York City. A bagpiper meets a Met conservator through a French woman in a dance class and his ivory is restored as well as his faith that he is living in the right city.

Ahhhhhh....

And...if I were twenty years younger and straight and Beth were single and interested we would fall in love and get married and I would come to realize that this seeming tragedy of me breaking the ivory piece on my pipes was the best thing that every happened to me.

...and this would be the story of how we MET.