Surprisingly enough, the world’s largest organ isn’t located in a cathedral or a church, but in the center of Macy’s Center City Store, in Philadelphia.
The Wanamaker Grand Court Pipe Organ is the largest playable pipe organ in the world. Its console alone weighs 2.5 tons and the entire installation weighs 287 tons. It was bought by John Wanamaker in 1909 and installed in his store, but, unsatisfied with its size, the owner built an organ factory in the store’s attic, in order to enlarge the Grand Court Pipe Organ.
The Wanamaker Pipe Organ was played in 1911 for the first time and has been entertaining Philadelphia shoppers 2 times a day, Monday to Saturday and even more often during winter holidays.
This giant organ has 28, 482 pipes. 6 manual keyboards, 42 foot pedals and is able to deliver incredible sound power. The organist, Peter Richard Conte has 729 color-coded buttons to choose from, just when he wants a different rank of pipes to be played.
Photos by REUTERS/Ray Stubblebine (UNITED STATES SOCIETY BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT)
via Drugoi
Foot pedals, really? What other kind of pedals are there?
Bob, never use a hand pedal before?
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_largest_pipe_organ_in_the_world
It depends – on whether you consider the largest to be the organ with the most pipes, the most stops or the most manuals (keyboards).
The Atlantic City Auditorium organ is usually thought of as the largest in the world – 7 manuals, 449 ranks of pipes, 33,114 pipes including 9 32 foot ranks and a true (not acoustic ) 64 foot rank. However it is only partly functioning at the moment.
The Wanamaker Store organ in Philadelphia ( Macey’s ) has only 6 manuals and 28,522 pipes, but has more ranks – 463.
The U. S. Military Academy Chapel in West Point NY has the largest organ with drawstops (rather than stop tabs ) with 380 ranks and 23,500 pipes
An organ museum at ‘the House on the Rock ‘ Spring Vale Wisconsin houses several consoles, including an 8-manual console and a huge console with 15 manuals in three stacks of 5 each.
Visit http://www.die-orgelseite.de/kurioses_e.htm#spieltische for more information.
Surely the size is based on size. The largest working oran is the Wanamaker store, but the largest organ is Atlantic City Auditorium