The Wanamaker Building’s branch of Macy’s in Philadelphioa is being shut down.
Happily, its historic pipe organ will be saved. The Inquirer reports:
The Wanamaker Building holds rare protections from the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Most historic buildings only have protections for their facades, but the Wanamaker Grand Court, including its iconic eagle statue and organ, is one of only five interiors that are protected in Philadelphia.
Wikipedia on the organ:
The Wanamaker Organ is the largest fully functioning pipe organ in the world, based on the number of playing pipes, the number of ranks and its weight. It is a concert organ of the American Symphonic school of design, which combines traditional organ tone with the sonic colors of the symphony orchestra. In its present configuration, the instrument has 28,750 pipes in 464 ranks.
The organ console consists of six manuals with an array of stops and controls that command the organ. The organ’s String Division fills the largest single organ chamber in the world. The division features eighty-eight ranks of string pipes built to Wanamaker specifications by the W.W. Kimball Company of Chicago.
The organ is famed for its orchestra-like sound, coming from pipes that are voiced softer than usual, allowing an unusually rich build-up because of the massing of pipe-tone families. The organ was also built and enlarged as an “art organ”, using exceptional craftsmanship and lavish application of materials to create a luxury product.
Rememeber when shopping was a mussical experience?
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