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It is the Wanamaker Organ ... It always had and always will be .. Macy's organ?... Yeah no

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanamaker_Organ

Used to go every year as a kid with my family for the Wanamaker's. Christmas light show and the Organ featured heavily. When I was in high school I saw a special concert from the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra of the Saint-Saëns (pronounced by goober me at the time as Saint Shawn) Organ Symphony...

Now I feel old .... that was 35 years ago....

These are expensive to move, much less set back up and restore during the setup. I hope some church with deep pockets grabs the thing, but it would also almost have to be at church that's building a new sanctuary in order to accommodate it. I have to believe it's a so-called theater organ as opposed to a classical organ, but so what?

When the Ellis auditorium in Memphis was torn down to build the Cannon Center in the same place (something that never should have happened) theater organs were in that place, as it had originally been an arena but was also able to be converted by its original design to two opposing concert halls of different sizes.

I don't know what happened to the smaller one, but the larger one was taken by a Baptist church in a suburb which was building a new sanctuary. Theater organs don't feature beautiful pipes arrays, but are typically tucked into cubbies, so the way that they dealt with that was to put gigantic speaker cloth (or something like that) over three upper box-shaped cavities - which faced the congregation from up above the pulpit side ("front") of the sanctuary.

There's also an old Orpheum circuit theater in downtown Memphis which later was bought by Malco to show movies and eventually shuttered. When it was restored decades ago to show touring Broadway shows, the organ was also restored. A local jazz/rock/pop keyboard player is also a fine pipe organist and is the keeper and player of that instrument. His name is Tony Thomas, and his Tony Thomas Trio (for at least 40 years now) plays all styles of pop music, obviously not with the Orpheum theater pipe organ. LOL

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tony+Th ... e&ie=UTF-8

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gocsick wrote: Sun Mar 23, 2025 6:48 am It is the Wanamaker Organ ... It always had and always will be .. Macy's organ?... Yeah no

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Somehow evokes the Pirates of Penzance opening act 2 dialogue...

https://www.gsarchive.net/pirates/web_o ... es15d.html

And "yeah no" to all those naming rights that cost an absurd amount. Well, with the possible exception of Snoop Dogg Stadium. Somehow that is appealing.

I hope whoever moves in next keeps the organ going.

And apparently Pipedreams is broadcast sunday morning 5-6 in the Boston area. That is whence most of my swiss cheese knowledge of the the subject comes.

Heard and saw it at Wanamakers in the 1970s. Unforgettable, and irreplaceable!