Work begins to reassemble organ
The reassembly of the Plaza Theater pipe organ has begun. On Saturday, Aug. 21, with the help of Maxim Crane Works, the organ’s console and blower were lifted to the third floor of Brownsville’s Odd Fellows building. Nine days later at 8 a.m., a group of volunteers gathered at the Flatiron building, where the remaining organ components had been stored for more than a year. Using three pickup trucks in rotation for three hours, those parts, including four wooden chests containing several hundred tin organ pipes, were moved to the Odd Fellows building.
The volunteer work crew included Candy Bastian, Furman Frazee, Cecil Kifer, Jeff Kifer, Paul Mammarella, Allen Nichols, Norma Ryan, Darrell Smith, Jay Smith, Kelly Tunney, Kristen Tunney, Melissa Tunney, and me. As curious motorists rubbernecked, the small army unloaded the unusual array of organ parts from the pickup trucks and carried them up two flights of stairs to the room where the organ will be installed.
By 11 a.m., the entire red-carpeted floor of the 30′ x 48′ meeting room, protected by plastic sheeting, was covered with wooden and metal pipes and mysterious-looking organ parts. Experiencing both exhaustion and satisfaction that the move was completed, the perspiring volunteers said goodbye and departed the building, leaving Jay Smith to survey the amazing scene and contemplate the job that lay ahead of him. Jay, who donated the organ to BARC, has volunteered to reassemble it.
Jay is the founder of the Pittsburgh Area Theatre Organ Society. It was only after weeks of associating with him that I inadvertently discovered that he has several academic degrees, including a Ph.D. in nuclear science. For 39 years prior to his 2003 retirement from Westinghouse, he designed nuclear reactor propulsion systems for U.S. Navy submarines and aircraft carriers while serving as a troubleshooter to solve operational problems within the U.S. fleet.
Now this same man is driving to Brownsville each week to rebuild the Plaza Theater organ. When I commented on his impressive academic credentials, Jay (who insists upon being called “Jay” rather than “Dr. Smith”) joked self-deprecatingly, “That and a nickel might get you a cup of coffee.”
He is a lover of theater organs, but his interest lies less with the music they create than with their intricate internal workings. It is a fascination that was born when he and his father purchased the Plaza organ 40 years ago. Now, four decades later, the disassembled Plaza organ is back in Brownsville, and the work of reassembling hundreds of parts into a working 1927-era theater pipe organ has begun.
A few of those parts have been damaged. Most of the damage occurred in February 2004 when a water pipe burst in the Flatiron garage, showering the stored organ components with water. Other bumps and bruises resulted from the two moves the organ has been put through over the past two years. These mishaps have added an element of suspense to Jay’s efforts to make the organ playable again. He seems confident it can be done.
“What damage have you discovered so far?” I asked Jay last week. He listed moisture and water-related damage first.
“Several of the wooden pipes have considerable splitting at the glue joints due to water damage,” Jay told me. “Repairs will not be difficult, but they will be very time-consuming. The snare drum needs a new skinhead due to water damage. The keydesk got wet, causing some of the ivory coverings to no longer be as flat as they should be, and the ebony-colored sharps have lost their color and should probably be painted. It appears that the entire xylophone needs to be completely rebuilt, due to water damage to the leather power pneumatics. The exposed electrical contacts in the console, literally thousands of them, are in need of cleaning to remove residue from the months in storage.”
“And what damage resulted from the two moves or the fifteen months in storage?” I asked.
“The mechanisms of a couple of stop tabs were broken on the console,” Jay noted, “which is minor damage. One large metal pipe has had the top broken off somehow and must be repaired, and one very small metal pipe has somehow gotten smashed. That’s what I have discovered so far.”
“Do you have any guess when your restoration and reassembly of the organ will be complete?”
“There is significant preparation work to do first. Part of the ceiling in the anteroom that will become the pipe chamber must be opened up, and a small rest room must be moved before the pipe chamber can be installed. All things considered, I do not anticipate completion before early next year, even if we do not encounter any unexpected obstacles or delays.”
“Where on the third floor do you plan to install the several hundred organ pipes and the keyboard console?”
“The pipe chamber would work equally well in either of the anterooms at the top of the stairs,” Jay explained, “although one has a lower ceiling that would have to be opened to accommodate the taller pipes. I envision the console on a rolling platform that can be positioned as desired for concerts, but whose ‘home’ position would be in one of the two rear corners of the big room.
“Another thought is to have a spotlight on the console and the ‘toy counter’ (xylophone, drums, jingle bells, castanets, etc.), which would be exposed in the big room itself. The door into the pipe chamber could be made of glass so that people could see the innards of the organ chamber.”
“Most folks have never seen a silent movie accompanied by live music,” I said. “Is there any chance of that happening here?”
“Silent films can be rented,” Jay nodded. “A screen can be erected in the big room on which we can show the silent movies, while the Plaza organ provides the accompaniment and sound effects just as it did in the 1920s.”
I asked Jay to identify some of the hurdles that lie ahead in the restoration effort.
“Among them are figuring out a way to silence or reduce the noise from the blower,” he began, “funding repairs necessary due to water damage (Jay is donating his own time for the reassembly), rebuilding the damaged xylophone, and finding someone to be a long-term caretaker for the organ, as my dad and I were for the past 40 years.”
“There was a lot of preparation, effort, and unexpected tribulation during the past two years in order to bring this organ back to Brownsville,” I said. “Do you still feel that donating the Plaza organ to BARC was the right move?”
“Yes,” Jay replied. “Even if the organ never speaks again to an audience, it is back in Brownsville, and an irreplaceable piece of American history has been saved.”
Last week, with the help of my wife Melissa and my children, Kristen and Kelly, Jay Smith began the meticulous task of cleaning the organ parts and testing some of the pipes for damage. By the end of the day, Jay was encouraged at what his tests revealed.
“We racked most of the diapason pipes on the manual pipe chest,” he reported, “put the chest under temporary wind pressure, (using a shop vac) and energized the magnets one at a time.
“Only one of those pipes did not speak, but we did not disassemble things to find out why. This is good news, because at least this particular chest appears not to have suffered major water damage.”
This week Jay and his helpers have continued cleaning organ parts, and Jay is moving on to the next major task, the disassembly of the 800-pound blower unit so that it can be moved in pieces to the windowless fourth floor, where it will be reassembled and permanently installed.
If you would like to hear the glorious sounds produced by a classic theater organ, there is a rare opportunity for you to hear one tonight.
Bob Ralston, the featured organist and pianist on the Lawrence Welk Show for many years, will be performing his sixteenth concert for the Pittsburgh Area Theatre Organ Society (PATOS) tonight, Sept. 18, at 7:30 p.m. at Keystone Oaks High School in Dormont.
Ralston will be playing the PATOS-restored Mighty Wurlitzer, the only theater organ in the Pittsburgh area.
To get to Keystone Oaks High School, take Route 51 north to Overbrook, turn left onto Route 88 and go a half-mile, turn right onto McNeilly Avenue, and go a mile and a half to the school. Concert admission is $12.
Readers, I will keep you informed on the progress Jay and his helpers make in their efforts to bring the Plaza organ back to life.
In a few months, I hope to be bringing you news of a rededication performance spotlighting this remarkable treasure from the glory days of Brownsville’s grandest theater.
Glenn Tunney may be contacted at 724-785-3201 or 6068 National Pike East, Grindstone, PA 15442. Comments about these weekly articles may be sent to editor Mark O’Keefe, 8 – 18 East Church Street, Uniontown, PA or e-mailed to mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com . All past articles are on the web at http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~glenntunneycolumn/