Seeing the bent and scattered pipes makes me feel like seeing a three legged dog. It's great they're still around, but it fills you with pity and horror mixed together.
Fascinating - as awful as it is to see an incredible organ like this in decline, it's an amazing opportunity for us all to see what needs to be done to bring this instrument back to life.
Thank you so much for that tour. Always wonderful to see the guts of a great instrument. Sad that it is in such sad repair, but hopeful that someday it will be heard again in all its glory.
It looks like whoever hung the new drywall stepped on the sm pipes..try to have these insurance co cover all costs of damaged..lock all chambers..up..we do in our theatre..so no vandalism happens..it looks as management didnt care who was doing work..and not watching over. Workers who don't care..what damage they do..i watch over everyone who has to get in the organ chamber's..to do any work ie fire alarms sprinkers ie...if they do damage there responsible. To covers repair cost..pls becarfull who u hire to do anything in a organ chambers..you got alot to lose..if know one cares..i hope this is helpful.ty for the tour..im sorry i had to say what I said..i hope this is helpful for management. .its a historic treasure. .
This is a sad vision. This is more than a treasure, it's a gift from our ancestors that should be taken care of, and protected against stupidity and vandalism. What a pride working on this heritage. Sure there is a lot to do but there is a soul in these marvels.
The state of the pipework, with the visible discoloration of obvious water damage, makes me cringe, but given what they’ve done with the other chamber I have hope that it will one day sound again as the Senator intended
trompette en chamade 32' Aside of focusing on the vandalism it’s also interesting to see the old instrument which has been out of use for decades. Like a time capsule.
Thanks so much. It’s like the castle in Beauty and the Beast; it’s better or more magical in certain ways that there are whole sections not functional. And, in the end teaches a lesson . . . all that for twelve notes! I’ll try to get good on my reed organ that I tuned and has a sixteen foot stop; maybe by then you’ll be ready for me! 😂
On the third rackboard from the drywall at 0:23 -- is that the Gamba Tuba !? That rank is worth a whole video in and of itself given its connection to Estey and the Haskell's!
I was wondering about that too. Gamba Tuba?? Literally a "leg" tuba? or a tuba with distinctly stringy qualities? Or (gods forbid) a viol with tuba-ish qualities?
@@paulh5293 William Haskell, inventor of the famous "Haskell bass" short open flue pipes, also invented several other special pipe forms. Among these were a series of flue pipe designs meant to provide tones that would substitute for reed stops: labial oboe, labial clarinet... and labial tuba! My understanding is that the Gamba Tuba in this organ is in fact Haskell's labial tuba. Years ago somebody sent me a photo of a pipe from the labial Tuba stop in an Estey organ in a hugh school auditorium in Los Angeles. He said that when he first heard it, not knowing it was labial, he thought the tone unusually bright for a tuba. But after he saw the pipes and understood that they were flues, the tone sounded to him like an incredibly loud string.
After reading through the comments, I see I not the only one interested in see more of this division and in particular the gamba tuba rank. I’ve made a few wood pipes before and It would be interesting to see if I could make copy of the a gamba tuba pipe. I’ve only seen a photo of it once and know it’s wood with a double languid and a strange tapered shape.
Pileata Magna - The Great Woodpecker - is a large scaled stopped wood rank. According its designer, Harry Van Wart, it's supposed yield a penetrating tone. The name is probably referring to the Pileated woodpecker found in North America. Pileata was the Latin name of a felt hat worn at a festivals honouring the god Saturn. It's sometimes used when constructing Latin names for animals and plants.
Is the winding to this division cut off ? Can we see the echo divinsion with the Egyptian bassoon and the 32' laying on its saide at the back of the chamber ?
I guess that once everything's restored it'll take a couple of full-time guys keeping it all in tune and operational. It's almost inconceivable that every part of it could be in perfect working order at the same time.
There are doors in the upper hallways that lead to crude wooden stairs which go to the chambers. The contents of those chambers had to have been hoisted up through the grilles in the ceiling.
I don't know how hard it is to take that grille off the outside and lower everything to the floor, as opposed to carrying everything down piece by piece on the ladders and flimsy wooden steps. One way or another it all has to come out, be redone in the usual way and put back up there, it's no different than anything else except getting it down.
Just because a devastating hurricane destroyed it in 1944, doesn't mean they have to neglect it Especially 2001 when the planning did NOT go well for the restoration.
The hurricane didn't affect the pipes and chests at all, they're far too high up and the roof remained intact during it. All the damage is from water leaks from AC units and damage from careless construction workers. What it did do was damage the blowers and destroy the original combination action.
There’s another video on here where they explain what happened - basically a construction crew came in to retrofit the building and they didn’t care what they did to the organ in the process.
@@CeruleanFilms Not the first time, and not the last. Allegedly, that was the fate of the E. M. Skinner that was in CUNY Hunter College's auditorium. Kinda sad, as it was Skinner's own shop organ that was donated to the school, if I remember the story correctly. It was later enlarged by Aeolian-Skinner. The few people that knew anything about it when I was studying there said it was decent when it was intact. At least the Boardwalk Hall organ has a happy ending. The only thing left of Hunter College's organ is the dusty and long-neglected console. I don't even think there is a single recording extant of the Hunter College organ.
It's years away as the all of the Gallery divisions are going to be restored first. They would like to have everything playing for the organ's 100th birthday, which could be anywhere between 2029 and 2032, depending on what you count as the "birth"!
Is this project an example of Parkinson's Law: Work increases to fit the time available. If there is no time limit on a project, then it NEVER gets finished! How long did it take to make this organ initially when it was constructed? Would it have been better to scrap the old thing & just build it again de novo?
Geezle Puss The organ was started in 1929 and was finished in 1932...I think...don’t quote me...as for scrapping the organ and building a new one, that defeats the whole purpose. Boardwalk hall really doesn’t need an organ. It did back in the day, but not now. The purpose of restoring the organ is to bring back to life one of the great accomplishments in the art of organ building and really the whole world.
It's a work of art. I remember hearing it being played as a child. I was taken on a tour of the "insides" back in the late 60's and it was in horrible shape back then. I was frightened to walk on "catwalk" type old boards and seeing down into other rooms. I'm thrilled it is being restored.
