The Wanamaker organ is battleship rugged and meant to last throughout the ages.
—Ray Biswanger, president, Friends of the Wanamaker Organ
As the Grand Court construction neared completion, Rodman Wanamaker was determined to make this amazing interior space as impressive as possible. Rodman’s passion for the arts strengthened after his ten-year stay in Paris. His knowledge of fine art helped the Wanamaker family win acceptance in social circles not just in Philadelphia but also in New York. He was determined to fill the Grand Court with music. Rodman declared, “I want the finest organ in the world built up there above that gallery.”
After realizing it would take too long to design and build such an organ, Rodman went in search of one. He learned that the Louisiana Purchase Exposition organ from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair might be available. Wanamaker sent George Till, an organ technician, to St. Louis to see if the organ fit the specifications of size and sound that Rodman hoped to fill the Grand Court with. Till was satisfied, and Wanamaker reportedly purchased the organ for “next to nothing.” In the summer of 1909, the exposition organ was loaded onto thirteen railroad freight cars and was transported to Philadelphia.
The organ was designed by George Ashdown Audsley and built by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company. “The Los Angeles Art Organ Co. took their name very seriously as their organs were meant to be works of art. They only used the best materials,” says Ray Biswanger, president of the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ. When the organ was finally finished for the fair, it contained 10,059 pipes and 140 stops. The famous French organist Felix-Alexandre Guilmant performed a series of recitals on the instrument as part of the fair’s highly touted presentations. These performances marked Guilmant’s final American appearances, and Guilmant praised the quality of the organ.17 If the organ was good enough for Guilmant, it certainly was good enough for the Wanamakers.
A souvenir postcard of the Wanamaker organ. Courtesy of the author.
It took almost two years to properly install the organ in the Grand Court and the instrument made its first public appearance on June 22, 1911. Unfortunately, Rodman felt that the instrument’s sound did not fill the space as greatly as he had hoped. He was determined to make the organ bigger, better and stronger. Rodman established an organ shop on the new building’s twelfth floor, and, by 1914, eight thousand pipes were added to the instrument. Students from the John Wanamaker Commercial Institute also began to learn the organ-building trade. “The JWCI students were one of the reasons that John wanted the organ,” says Biswanger.
The Great Organ was respected and praised by music lovers worldwide. On March 27, 1919, fifteen thousand people gathered in the Grand Court to hear organist Charles M. Courboin and Leopold Stokowski with the Philadelphia Orchestra perform Charles Marie Widor’s Sixth Symphony for organ and orchestra.18 Courboin returned the following year to perform a series of evening recitals and also joined Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra for a performance of Symphony no. 3, or Organ Symphony, by Camille Saint Saens. The specifics of the organ were quite impressive.
A John Wanamaker promotional brochure on the Great Organ states:
All the guest artists have been impressed by the beauty, completeness, and accessibility of the console. Weighing nearly two and one-half tons, it is mounted on a platform at the east side of the court on the first floor above the main floor. It rests on a pivot and track and can be turned at will. Everything is within the organist’s reach. It has six manuals with 451 stops and 964 controls. There are 42 accessories for the feet and 729 tilting tables operated by remote control from 168 pistons under manual keys, of which there are 46 masters and 46 reversibles.
The organ used massive amounts of electricity to operate. According to legend, whenever the power to the organ was turned on, someone had to call Philadelphia Electric to request more energy. That story was an old wives’ tale but it has been said that if all eight blowers of the organ were turned on at once, it could blow every fuse in the entire building. The organ was also rarely played for more than an hour in order to prevent overheating that could damage the wind chests.19
Since the Wanamaker building opened in 1911, there has always been a full-time organist. The first Grand Court organist was Dr. Irvin J. Morgan, who presided over the store’s dedication ceremony with President Taft. Though he was praised for his musical abilities, Morgan battled alcoholism that hampered his ability to “get around the controls” at times.20 In 1917, Mary E. Vogt took over as the store’s organist. Mary began working at the store when she was twelve years old. She was thirty-two when she was handpicked by Rodman to become the store’s next full-time organist. She was never formally trained in music but, nonetheless, she was a fixture at Wanamaker’s, and Rodman looked to her for musical advice. Louise Wanamaker knew Mary Vogt well and would often visit her at the console. “I used to go in the organ loft when she was playing and talk to her about a new hat or something equally important,” says Wanamaker. Mary held the position for forty-nine years, retiring in 1966. “She stayed on a little too long,” says Ray Biswanger. Dr. Keith R. Chapman replaced Mary Vogt and remained until his untimely death in 1989. Chapman was viewed as a consummate musician with a warm personality.
A view of the new console of the Wanamaker organ. Courtesy of the author.
Ray Biswanger of the Friends of the Wanamaker organ recalls one visit with Chapman in the 1970s.
I remember I was visiting Keith Chapman and I was sitting in the loft. All of the sudden, I saw a kid running through the court. He was being chased by a whistle-blowing policeman. Keith stopped what he was playing and broke into this great Keystone Cops music.21
The acclaimed organist, Peter Richard Conte, became Grand Court organist after Chapman passed away. Conte was an assistant of Chapman’s and praised the organ for its “symphonic” beauty.
At its completion in 1930, the organ had 461 ranks and 28,482 pipes. But like most pipe organs, the pipes that are seen from the Grand Court are facade pipes and are strictly ornamental. The Great Organ was touted as the world’s largest pipe organ. Its closest competition was the organ located in Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Of the two massive instruments, the Wanamaker organ was the most popular.
The Philadelphia Wanamaker store was not just home to the Great Organ in the Grand Court. Two additional organs were located within the store. The Greek Hall, an area for respite for Wanamaker shoppers on the store’s second floor, housed a small, fifteen-rank pipe organ. Before his death, Rodman donated the Greek Hall instrument to a retirement home. By the early 1930s, it was replaced by a “famous Hammond pipeless electric organ.”22 The Egyptian Hall, where the store’s piano department was located, contained a sixty-rank pipe organ. By the late 1930s, the Egyptian Hall organ was decommissioned and the instrument was broken up for parts.23
The presence of an organ was not limited solely to the Philadelphia Wanamaker store. The New York store was home to the Wanamaker Auditorium Organ. A 1,500-seat auditorium was located on the third floor of the newer building of the New York Wanamaker complex. The organ was built in 1904 by the Austin Organ Company of Hartford, Connecticut. Damaged by a fire in 1917, the Wanamaker Organ Shop rebuilt the instrument in 1920. It was enlarged to include 4 manuals, 115 stops, 118 ranks and 7,422 pipes.24 The New York Auditorium Organ served a different purpose than the Great Organ in Philadelphia. The New York Auditorium was a formal setting where shoppers could take a break from shopping and sit and relax to the music. Rodman was never fully satisfied with the sound of the New York organ. Over the years, the organ became less important to the New York store. Water, created by the air-conditioning system, leaked into the organ and damaged the instrument. “Build an organ and water will follow,” says Ray Biswanger.25 In August 1945, Wanamakers announced that its New York Auditorium would be divided into three television studios for the DuMont Television Network.26 Consequently, the New York Wanamaker Auditorium Organ fell silent.
On the other hand, the Great Organ continues to be heard twice daily in the Philadelphia Wanamaker building. Thousands of customers, like former KYW-TV reporter Trudy Haynes, enjoyed shopping at Wanamakers and the organ was part of the experience. “I always enjoyed the organ, the music and the feeling of elegance when you went into Wanamakers,” says Haynes.
Organ curator Curt Mangel praises the genius of the organ’s console layout, which was designed by an organ builder. He says, “[The Wanamaker Organ] is without question the most famous organ in the world. It is the finest symphonic instrument ever built. It was built to imitate a symphony orchestra.”
Every day, the Wanamaker store was filled with beautiful music. Every day, crowds gathered in the Grand Court to hear one of the world’s finest musical instruments. And every day, shoppers and workers alike would await the sound of Taps over the store’s loud speaker system, signaling the end of another day’s business.