The hospital released information on this mysterious stranger to the press. There are many speculations about this – whether an individual ‘leaked’ the information, or the famous picture of the piano man was set up, or whether more simply, the hospital simply hoped to find the man’s identity by releasing his image to the public.
Some of this may be cleared by this relatively recent blog post by photographer Mike Gunill.
http://mikegunnill.tumblr.com/post/101689916343/mystery-man-piano-man
Nonetheless, the story got out, and went global. Thankfully the BBC, unlike most other newspapers, still have many of their articles published and available to view online. (Why have the others been taken down?)
The Piano Man 