|
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
|
Author
|
Topic: world's largest wurlitzer organ still in use
|
|
|
|
|
Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster
Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 08-07-2004 09:55 PM
I read recently that the huge cable linking the organ console to the relays at the Atlantic City Convention Center pipe organ had been accidentally cut by electricians. Has anyone heard if its been restored yet?
Here are the specs for those that are not aware of it.....
____________________
"Size & Basic Seven manuals (3 extended to 6 or 7 octaves),
Facts 1,439 stop keys, 1,255 speaking stops, 455 ranks
(approx. 140 now playable), 33,112 pipes.
Divisions 22 Divisions:
Pedal, Great, Grand Great, Solo, Woodwind,
Great Ancillary, Swell,Choir, Unenclosed Choir,
Grand Choir, String Organ Nos. 1, 2, & 3,
Brass Chorus, Fanfare, Echo, Reed-Diaphone Gallery 1,
Flute Organ Gallery 2, Diaposon Chorus Gallery 3,
Orchestra Reeds Gallery 4, Percussion.
Pipe and Dozens of pipe chambers located behind grille screens
Action in eight locations around the auditorium, including
Chambers in the roof overhead. Also rooms for relays, action, etc.
Largest pipes: 64' Diaphone Profunda, whose low CCCCC is 64'9" long,
10" square at the base, 36" square at the top, and
3" thick; made of a single tree that was at least 785
years old! The 12 lowest pipes contain more than
10,000 board feet of lumber, enough to build a house.
Also, there are ten 32' pedal ranks. The 32' Open
Diapasorns low CCCC is 38'6" long and weighs more than
a ton all by itself
Most powerful 8' Tuba Imperial (Solo Div.) and 16' Ophicleide
stop in the (pedal extension);
world 100" wind pressure.
Other unusual Odd stops: Vox Baryton, Bugle, Contra Spire Flute,
Stops Pileata Magna(Big Woodpecker?), Trumpet Melody, Jubal
& Melody, Euphone, Egyptian Horn, Musette, Tibia Rex,
Gizmos Dulzard Twelfth, Ocarina-- and an Unda Maris (can it
be heard in the 41,000-seat Hall?).
Unusual Gizmos: Pedal second-touch floating couplers.
Blowers Multiple recently-installed new blowers, totalling
nearly 1,000 horsepower.
Wiring 137,500 MILES of wire (enough to circle the earth
5 1/2 times)
Wood used 225,000 board feet of lumber
Weight Approximately 150 tons; main pipe chests supported
by large steel beams and frames.
Builder and Designed by Senator Emerson Richards, built by
Construction Midmer-Losh in Merrick. Long Island, New York.
Required 100 technicians, four years. Most of
the larger pipes were fabricated inside Convention
Hall.
Original cost $400,000 in 1929.
Auditorium Seats 41,000, all with unobstructed view.
Located on the Boardwalk, Atlantic City, New Jersey USA.
Miscellaneous 30 tremolos, adjustable to various speeds by organist.
There are 12 remote keyboards in the pipe chambers,
used for tuning and maintenance.
A now-disconnected five-manual "portable" console
now sits in the lobby of the Hall."
_______________________
I think they should get it all back up and going, it had to be awsome back when it was installed. There is a cool CD of this organ and the first cut is just of the blowers runing up to speed. That cut alone makes the CD worthwhile!
Mark
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Steve Kraus
Film God
Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000
|
posted 08-08-2004 07:49 PM
quote:
In 1972, the original Organ Stop Pizza restaurant premiered in Phoenix, Arizona at the corner of 7th Street and Missouri Avenue with a Wurlitzer pipe organ which was originally built for Grauman's Hollywood Egyptian Theater. This unique concept of a pizza parlor with a pipe organ was envisioned by William P. Brown, a Phoenix real estate developer whose enthusiasm for the theater pipe organ and its music led to the creation of this landmark attraction.
The phenomenal success of the Phoenix restaurant prompted plans to open another Organ Stop in Mesa. It opened in 1975 near the corner of Dobson and Southern Avenue with a Wurlitzer organ from the Denver Theater in Denver, Colorado. In the theater, the Denver instrument had 15 ranks, or sets of pipes. The instrument was totally rebuilt, and the decision was made to enlarge the organ to 23 ranks for its debut in the new Mesa Organ Stop.
The success and popularity of the new Organ Stop Pizza mirrored that of the Phoenix location. In 1984, Bill Brown decided to retire from the restaurant business. The Phoenix Organ Stop was sold to a real estate developer, who sold the pipe organ and demolished the building in favor of an office complex. Incidentally, that instrument was sold to a couple in Downers Grove, Illinois, for installation in their home!
Mark: Anyone we know? WJ & SJ did used to reside within the Tivoli. The Tiv had the organ from the Champaign Rialto but wasn't that replaced?
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ron Yost
Master Film Handler
Posts: 344
From: Paso Robles, CA
Registered: Aug 2003
|
posted 08-08-2004 09:02 PM
Steve,
That would be the Sanfilippo "Palace de la Musique" in Barrington Hills, Illinois.
Here's one web page about it, though there's simply no way to do the place justice on the internet:
Jasper Sanfilippo Palace de la Musique
Here's another site, with color pictures:
Sanfilippo's Victorian Palace
My main interest is automatic musical instruments, and Jasper has at least one of nearly every one ever conceived and built, from all over the world.
Oh, BTW, the idea of putting a WurliTzer into a pizza parlor was Carsten Henningsen's. He was the first to install one in his "Ye Olde Pizza Joynt" in Hayward, California in the early 60's. He was a good friend, who's gone on to the big console in the sky. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) He was also a 'steam man'. Great guy.
The huge pizza organs are mostly franken-WurliTzers and are vastly extended over their original WurliTzer specification and, as Mark says, aren't completely unified (nor are most of them entirely WurliTzer). Carsten's was modest, by comparison to the later monsters.
Ron Yost
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 08-09-2004 03:48 AM
I remember swearing to myself that I would never be one of those people who knew all about cast & acts of the theatre organ soap opera, & now I are one:
The Sanfilippo's had 2 large theatre organs. One, before they built the present huge organ house, & another when they got David Junchen to create the big one in there now.
Without going to look stuff up, it seems to me that they first had the Egyptian organ as the nucleus of an enlarged one: the Egyptian was a Style 260 Wurlitzer - 3 manuals, 15 ranks. It was enlarged with more ranks from other organs which had been parted out. Then, when they decided to build get David Junchen to build the Last Word In Theatre Organs for the new organ 'room', they sold the 1st organ & got another Wurlitzer which was enlarged. The Sanfilippo 5 manual console (not many were built back in the day!) is not vintage or original or whatever either, it was constructed I believe by Ken Crome.
Theatre organs are very modular in a basic respect: if you've got an organ that was originally 2 manuals & 10 ranks, you can replace the 2 manual console with a 3 manual, then add more ranks, then when you have more ranks, get or construct a bigger console, etc.
http://www.theatreorgans.com maintains the best database of original & existing installations; here's Downer's Grove's:
http://barton.theatreorgans.com/cgi-bin/db2net.exe
The ACCH organ has for a long time been one of those HUGE monsters that has been only partially operating or not at all. It's one of the largest in the world (fights for the title abound & quibbles turn on stops vs. ranks, etc., but ACCH maintains Is it a theatre organ? It's not in a theatre, it's not in a church, it's not really voiced like a TO, but many TO's weren't, etc. It's very important in that it's one of only two organs with a 64' rank; the other is in the Sydney Town Hall in Australia. Brrrrrr goes the 64' rank, & you have to have a huge room for it anyway. There are some folks who've transplanted some of the Wurlitzers which had 32' ranks into rooms (auditoria, whatever) that are too small to allow the wave to develop!
Gordon: no joke on the unification of Comptons. They got the idea faster & better than Wurlitzer. Lots of people re-spec Wurlitzers at re-build to increase the unification. Issues of preservation come up here, along with demands for 'modern' expectations of TO sound & performers.
The RCMH Wurlitzer is indeed the largest organ originally installed by Wurlitzer. Its pedigree is spotty though: When the contract was put out for bids, Kimball submitted a bid & the spec for the organ. Wurlitzer then went back to RCMH & told them they could put the same organ in for a lower price. They used the Kimball spec at least on the console, but much of the pipework was just slightly re-voiced Wurlitzer stuff off the shelf masquerading as different ranks spec'd by Kimball. The RCMH organ has, honestly, never been considered one of the best Wurlitzer installations in other respects, too. Besides not sounding the hottest, there are lots of stories of its being just thrown in, wires just twisted together & other sloppiness, it speaks through awkward tone chutes which were found to be full of construction junk later, etc. During the last remodel at RCMH, the original electropneumatic relays were junked, the relay rooms re-purposed for other uses, & an electronic relay installed. Supposedly it would be 100% reliable, but there have been rumors about it, too.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[puke]](graemlins/puke.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[beer]](graemlins/beer.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic