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The Theatre Organs Of Syracuse
As recalled by famous Theatre Organ Artist
and native Syracusan, Stu Green, in 1983.

   I first became aware of organs in movie houses in my hometown, Syracuse New York in the early 1920's.  There were then few downtown houses devoted entirely to showing films; vaudeville and stage shows were still dominant.  Houses devoted entirely to movies were usually converted vaudeville or legit houses, easily identifiable because they had the scenery "flies" above the stage area.  Of the downtown houses, only the Eckel was intended solely for movies; it had no stage.  The screen was against the back wall, between two projecting organ chambers which housed a colorless Austin straight organ until the 8 rank Wurlitzer was installed in the mid 1920's.  The Strand Theatre had the deepest stage I've ever seen in a medium size house.  It was a very old theatre even in the early 1920's, a theatre which had seen many years of stage presentations before becoming a movie house.  It too, was equipped with a small Austin which was exchanged for a style 240 Wurlitzer circa 1926.

   Away from the downtown area was the Regent a few blocks out on East Genesee Street.  It had a stage of sorts and scenery flies but few dressing rooms.  It had a small monochrome Austin.  The other downtown houses (Syracuse, Empire, Crescent, Rivoli, Bastable, B.F. Keith's, Temple, Weiting Opera House) used piano's for silent film accompaniment in the early 1920's or hired a small ensemble from the AFM Local.  All of that changed rather quickly starting in 1923-1924.

   The Rivoli, a rather modest second run house near the huge New York Central Railroad station, installed a 2 manual, 6 rank Marr & Colton.  It was a very early model which still showed some of David Marr's church voice leanings, but in the able hands of Luella Edwards (later Wickham), it was a sensation.  The management, the Fitzer brothers, made the most of the opening and other theatre owners took note of the curious lined up to get into the Rivoli.  Within a year, most of the downtown houses had organs or had set an opening date.  Theatres which had never housed organs were clearing space for chambers, wind lines and blowers.  The large consoles often crowded up to three musicians out of already small orchestra pits and in the vaudeville houses.  By mid 1927 the organ lineup in downtown Syracuse looked something like this:

Syracuse (2nd run and burlesque) 3/10 Marr & Colton
Empire Theatre (1st run) 3/10 Marr & Colton
Crescent (3rd run plus burlesque) Piano plus 2 ranks of pipes on separate manual, make unknown
Rivoli (2nd run) 2/6 Marr & Colton
B.F. Keiths (Vaudeville and movies) 3/11 Wurlitzer
Strand (1st run) 3/12 Wurlitzer
Temple (Vaudeville and movies) 2/7 Wurlitzer
Regent (2nd run) 3/13 Marr & Colton
Eckel (1st run) 3/8 Wurlitzer

   There are some omissions.  Across the street from the Rivoli was a remnant from the early converted store movie houses which specialized in blood and thunder films, the novelty.  It's flat front was a garish billboard of colorful lithographed posters advertising the current attraction.  It was equipped with a Robert Morton "FotoPlayer" consisting of a few short ranks of pipes which were supplemented by a piano and several sets of free reeds in two swell boxes.  Apparently it got little maintenance, because by the middle 1920's the pipes and piano went silent and the film accompanist did the best he could with the free reeds, a sort of harmonium effect.  This condition continued until the Novelty acquired one of those twin-turntable record players called a "non-sync" (e.i. non synchronous ), a device dreamed up by the devil to give the impression of "sound" using records to accompany silent films.  This short lived gadget operated by the former organist, who tried to find appropriate music on 78 rpm records to fit the scene on the screen, and exercise in frustration for an organist with a head full of music cues suitable for any movie scenario.  It wasn't long before the Rivoli across the street took the same path.  Several other theatre's in downtown area substituted recorded music for live music because the "non-sync" gave the impression of sound movies with out the expense.

   Sharp eyed Syracusans  will note that several theatres have been omitted in our list.  For example, the Bastable, which burned to the ground in the early twenties, while the writer was experiencing "The Birth Of A Nation" as thrillingly cued by Luella Edwards at the nearby Rivoli).

   Also, I haven't mentioned Loews State.  This magnificent theatre did not open until 1929, after most of the silent film era was past.  It was equipped with a very good 4/20 Wurlitzer which never quite reached the tonal excellence of Keith's 3/11 Wurlitzer.  It now languishes in storage hear the Oakland California city dump.

   One other theatre in the downtown Syracuse area is rather nebulous in memory.  I can't recall it's name; located on Warren Street, it was razed in the mid 1920's, replaced by a bank.  Luella (Edwards) Wickham states that the movie house never had an organ, that it used only piano accompaniments.  Yet an organist who played in many Syracuse theatre's during the silent era, one with whom I worked on the Kallet theatre chain, insisted that the house had a piano with several ranks of pipes available on an upper 61 note manual, and that a one octave pedal division was added in the early 1920's.  This veteran organist, Hannah Jarrett, said that the same Luella (Edwards) Wickham was overjoyed by the addition of the pedal division because it enabled her to play overtures.  Take your choice.

Syracuse Studio Organs

   The most interesting studio organ was the 2/6 Marr and Colton installed in the home of Paul H. Forster near the corner of Westcott and East Genesee Streets.  By 1928, when the organ was installed, the theatre organ era was largely over. But the public was not yet ready to abandon the beloved instrument, not after a decade of nurturing. Forster was the most prominent theatre organist in Syracuse, partly due to his well-deserved fame as a master of the sing-along and partly because of a knack for self-promotion. He had established his reputation as an entertainer over many years playing first at the Empire and, following- a very short stay at the Theatre in Ft. Worth, Texas, at the Eckel in Syracuse.  Forster was a solid Marr & Colton enthusiast.  He considered their distinctive emphasis on solo voices the best vehicles -for his brand of playing, which was energetic and spectacular.  His home instrument was largely built and personally installed by his one-time boss, David Marr.

    Pipe scaling was on the small side, and was installed in two chambers improvised from a bedroom which played into the far end of the oblong living room.  It had a high ceiling and was about 20' x 35' in width and length.  The console was as far from the chambers as possible, surrounded by potted palms near the front entrance.  If memory serves me well, it had no combination action.  But it was unified to the hilt, the stop keys forming a double stop rail on the tiny console. It had couplers which provided a full 7th chord when only the root note was pressed.

    Tonally, it was peculiar, reflecting the Forster preference for sometimes garish instrumentation; after all, he was first a showman. The string, vox humana and concert flute were typically Marr and Colton, that is, conservative.  The diapason as a silvery leather-lipped phonon.  The Tibia was also typically Marr and Colton, round and full but not as lush as Wurlitzer's.  One would assume that the ensemble would call for a solo reed which would also blend into the ensemble.  But this was a Forster organ; he preferred the loud cackle of an over-tremulated, un-blending Marr & Colton Kinura.  Unless one has experienced this style of kinura, words are wasted.  But it definitely had barnyard qualities.  Forster had one on his Empire organ and used it prominently; he missed that blatant voice when he moved to the Eckel with its 3/8 Wurlitzer.  Indeed, he preferred colorful instrumentation.

    As one organ expert put it, David Marr always installed a tremulant in each chamber, whether it was needed or not.  But no more than one.  That put the kinura, vox and tibia all on the same trem, Marr never seemed to grasp the idea that different voices require their own speed and depth of tremulation.  No matter, the kinura provided a loud solo voice which fit in well with the Forster style of playing.

    But on the few occasions when the studio was rented out for broadcasts by an organist other than Forster, the kinura was not heard, the five remaining ranks, with all that unification, offered plenty of variety. The Forster organ was dominant on Syracuse-airwaves for about ten years (1928-1938).  During the '30s, the writer was the arranger-accompanist for a girl trio which sang tunes of the day quite regularly on the Forster broadcasts.  Around 1938, with the music business locally in a slump, Forster sold the Marr and Colton and it was broken up for parts.  We can't help but wonder what became of the Marr & Colton kinura.  Did it end up in a church?  It was really something.

    The other studio installation we knew of was a hand-me-down removed from one of the once stylish mansions along James Street, in previous years the area of Syracuse's rich and stylish. It was a partly unified organ of undecipherable origins which had been fitted with a horseshoe console of sorts when it was moved to radio station WSYR's new studios circa 193?. Attempts had been made to make it sound theatrical but through the mix of voices came the dullness of the typical mansion organ.  These instruments were normally designed so that one voice sounded about like the others, a built in monotony which allowed the owner to play rolls while having fun changing the registration.  Keeping all voices sounding alike kept Mrs. Gotrocks from running across an unpleasant combination she might complain to the builders about.

    The WSYR organ had a few interesting additions but mostly dull voices.  Nevertheless, one of the studio announcers became proficient on it for a noontime series of music and commercials.  The writer's only opportunity to examine it, came when he was assigned to write dramatic bridges to connect scenes from radio sketches aired by local drama club.  The results were not impressive.

Syracuse Neighborhood Theatres

   I can list only a few from actual experiences; it was a very brief era.  My favorite was the Avon Theatre, 439 Hawley Avenue, largely Italian-oriented neighborhood.  It was equipped with the sweetest 3/8 Marr & Colton in my memory.  It was opened in the mid 1920's by a "personality" organist whose interest was in wowing females rather than excelling in film accompaniments.  He saw himself as a soloist and put much effort into his sing-a-longs.  He was a devotee of Jesse Crawford.  Hearing that the N. Y. Paramount organist accomplished those thrilling "rolls" by reducing the spring tension on a manual, he had the tension on the middle manual reduced from the usual 4 ounces to 1 ounce, while leaving the top and lower manuals at 4 oz. This -imbalance didn't seem to bother long-time Avon organist Hannah Jarrett but woe to the -unwary substitute organist who reached for a chord on the middle manual and got a fist-full of additional notes.  I solved the problem by doing most playing on the lower and third manuals. The last time I drove by the -Avon, it had been converted to a mattress factory.

   In the middle 1920's the city fathers expected Syracuse to expand down South Salina Street.  Builders were encouraged to erect downtown style office buildings, stores and theatres all along this main thoroughfare.  The southward expansion never materialized in any volume, but the effort resulted in some fine but isolated buildings by 1928.  One was the Brighton block which housed a large theatre with a fine 3/10 Marr and Colton which the organist couldn't hear clearly until the music had bounced off the back wall of the auditorium; the chambers were aimed straight out from balcony level.  The theatre was built several miles from downtown and there just weren't enough people willing to make the trek.  Despite a well-ballyhoo start, vaudeville, a pit orchestra, organ soloists and first-run movies, the house soon went dark.  By 1932 the organ percussions had been stolen from the closed house, and many a neighborhood youth's jalopy boasted a chiming-exhaust whistle fashioned from the Marr and Colton's pipes. The Brighton is now a bowling alley.

   Yet smaller theatres prospered in the same general area.  At the corner of Colvin and South Salina streets was a little hole-in-the-wall movie, the Arcadia.  It operated long before and after the Brighton as a "subsequent run" house, with movies suitable for children on Saturday afternoons.  The Arcadia had a roll-playing -9 Seeburg Piano with two ranks of pipes (Stopped Flute and short Quintadena) played from a manual above the piano keyboard.  Pipe work was contained in the oversize piano case; the low flute pipes, which went down to bass C, were attached to the back of the piano case horizontally where they played ,without expression.  Action was pneumatic.  Tone quality was on the harsh side.  The only added effects were guitar buttons which a stop key would cause to lay against some of the piano strings for a plucked string effect.  As long as the Arcadia ran silent movies, no musician's fingers graced the instrument's keyboards; it was used exclusively to play rolls which occasionally provided music which fit the action on the screen.  The customers didn't seem to mind and the -Arcadia operated well into the "talkie" era using hand-me-down sound equipment.

   One of the most interesting "nabe" houses was the Riviera, far down South Salina Street. When owner Harry Gilbert sold the Regent in 1928 he used the money to realize his "dream theatre," this to be built in a nice neighborhood for family entertainment.  It was a relatively small theatre, probably about 500 seats.  It was an "atmospheric" house, built to resemble an Italian garden with a twilight-blue sky overhead, complete with a cloud projector and twinkling "stars."  For such a tiny theatre, the organ chambers were huge, far larger than required by the 2/7 divided Wurlitzer.  Organist Bart Wright told me that a deal Gilbert had made for a much larger organ of another make had fallen through, so he settled for the small Wurlitzer.  And why not?  Why spend money on an organ at all?  The Riviera had opened as a "talkie'' house with only a few silent films booked for the kids on weekend afternoons.  Actually he didn't need an organ in the Riviera at all (he had a non-sync' in the projection room).  Yet the showman in Harry Gilbert told him that his customers had so long connected "organ" with "theatre," that they would expect organ music.  Gilbert wanted everything about his new Riviera to be first class, and in 1928-29 organ music was still in demand.  SO the Riviera got a 2/7 Wurlitzer and one of Syracuse's best musicians, Bart Wright, to play song slide novelties, overtures, film preludes and intermissions.  Those were happy days for organ music enthusiasts when their favorite music could be heard even in a 500-seat neighborhood movie.  The Riviera is gone now and I heard its console was rebuilt to serve as a writing desk.  A much less interesting neighborhood theatre was the Harvard at the corner of Harvard Place and Westcott Street, a residential area not far from Syracuse University.  However, the circa 400-seat house was more often frequented by students from nearby Nottingham High School.  It opened early in 1927 with a Style B Wurlitzer whose four ill-matched ranks might have served as the Brain (accompaniment) for a larger instrument.  The one good voice was a style D trumpet.  The salicional was coarse in tone, the concert flute nondescript and dull, the vox was croak and worst of all, the single chest action was noisy so that there was a continuous clacking percussion heard when the instrument was played.  I had the dubious honor of starting my brief career on the Style B.  It was no pleasure.  A much better instrument was the 2/3 Wicks across town in the Elmwood (neighborhood) theatre.  It was also a roll player.  Its stopped flute, vox and string were matched in a pleasing tonal ensemble.  Organist Vic Viveros made it sound much larger than three ranks as he played blood and thunder silent movies for the Saturday afternoon matinee.  In fact I didn't know it had only three ranks until years later when I was called on to prepare and play a Sunday matinee song slide novelty.  No, the manager didn't want a sing-along at any other time, just for Sunday afternoon.  I had a rehearsal with the projectionist before the matinee then went out for a bit of breakfast.  When I returned the theatre was full and the audience, mostly young females, was showing loud approval of an "Oswald Rabbit" animated cartoon.  Then it was my turn.  Never have I had a more appreciative audience.  The audience members sang their heads off and when I finished and took my bow, the applause was deafening.  I was a great success at the Elmwood.  I went back to the manager's office.  He had been observing through a port and was grinning.  "Did you catch my act? They sure went for my sing-a-long!"  I blurted, almost ready to suggest a raise.

   Then my bubble burst; the manager said, "Oh they'll applaud to anything -- they're the girls from the home for the mentally retarded up on the hill.  Coming here for a show is their reward for behaving all week.  You were just their dessert."

   Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.

Our thanks to the family of Charlie Rich whom donated this to the museum archives.

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