Widely recognized to be the world's largest working organ, the Wanamaker Organ boasts 28,543 pipes stretching from the second to the seventh floor of the historic department store, founded by John Wanamaker and now owned by Macy's.
(The Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ in Atlantic City is in fact the largest organ in the world with 32,000 pipes, but it is nonfunctional.)
Biswanger is in his element when discussing the organ's history. He reels off facts, figures, and numbers with facility, and not a little pride.
The Wanamaker Organ was designed by architect George Ashdown Audsley for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, he recounts. Initially outfitted with 10,000 pipes, it was bought by John Wanamaker in 1909 and shipped east to his famed department store.
"It took a 13-car freight train to fit it all," says Biswanger, whose 1,000-member group helps with the organ's ongoing restoration.
In Biswanger's telling, John Wanamaker was unhappy with the organ's grandeur.
"It was grand-sounding but it wasn't really impressive once it was installed," he says. Over the next two decades, John and later his son, Rodman, expanded the organ to triple its original size.
"John Wanamaker loved music and felt [the organ] should be a part of Philadelphia's daily life," Biswanger says. True to his pledge, Wanamaker's organ "has played every business day," Mondays through Saturdays, "since 1911" at least once, usually twice a day.
"It's kind of the voice of Philadelphia, and the Grand Court is the meeting place of the city."
Conte has been Wanamaker's chief organist since 1989. ("It's one of the best gigs in the world for an organist to have," he says.)
