ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From: Al Sefl, Sep 2002
That organ is originally from the State Lake Theatre in Chicago. For some 20
years we used it in San Francisco every Friday evening for our silent movies
and for concerts. It was featured in several ATOE and ATOS National
Conventions. Sadly the neighborhood got so dangerous that only those with
gun permits would attend. The organ was taken out of the wonderful
acoustical environment of the Avenue Theatre and put into storage where it
suffered from some dampness. The owners of the organ junked the relay which
was somewhat of a crime because I could have gotten it working again without
much effort. I built a Z-tronics relay for them and they put the organ into
the Towne with big hopes of continuing the silents. For a while it worked
and the acoustics were not too bad but then the separate owners of the
theatre decided to cut the theatre up to increase seat sales. Interest fell
off, Bob Vaughn, the master of the silent film fell into ill health, and a
small box office take made the Sunday Silents unprofitable.
Now as to the organ. It is a Style 240 with added ranks to bring it up to 17
ranks when current additions are completed. The ranks are Concert Flute,
Salicional & Celeste, VDO & Celeste, Vox Humana, Open Diapason, Horn Diapason
& Celeste, Clarinet, Tibia Clausa, Tuba, Brass Trumpet, Orchestral Oboe,
Kinura, Saxophone, and English Horn. Notable additions were the 16' Tibia
Clausa octave and 16' octave of super large scale Wood Diaphones from the
California Theatre in San Francisco. The 32' octave was lost when the
demolition contractor would not let the removal crew (Ron Downer & Charlie
Hershmann + other unnamed individuals) take them out past a deadline. These
were scaled with a 42" opening on CCCC and it would make Market Street
outside shake when they were used. Shook up a lot of '06 Quake survivors so
the ventil switch was mostly on to keep them off! But I digress. The piano
is an addition as is several other traps and percussions.
I will be going down to work on the organ some Sunday soon before the
matinee. While the organ rarely gets played for audiences, a number of us
still maintain it and keep it ready for the next Theatre Organ Rebirth!