Grand Court Organ in the Wanamaker building: with Macy’s closing, what is its fate?

Though my articles rarely reflect a hot-off-the-presses event, here’s another exception to that rule, which I feel compelled to publish now (instead of three months from now) because, I fear, waiting that long will cause its significance to fade from collective memory.  The event to which I refer is obvious from the title: the demise of the Center City Philadelphia Macy’s on March 23, putting an end to an opulent shopping experience that endured at the corner of Market Street and 13th Street for just shy of 150 years.  But the implosion of bricks-and-mortar retail in general and malls in particular (a subject I’ve covered generously) has strained Macy’s finances, and, in what’s becoming a doleful annual tradition, the department store chain announced the closure of 64 more locations in December, including downtown Philadelphia.  The Market Street location never affiliated with a mall; it was a freestanding structure, large enough to serve as a shoppers’ magnet in its own right.  But those days have come to an end as Macy’s continues to downsize by eliminating underperforming stores.  Unlike most other Macy’s locations, however, (including the one I covered recently at Security Square Mall), the Center City Macy’s wasn’t just a bland, windowless concrete block exterior and an interior of drab fluorescent lights.  The Center City Philadelphia Macy’s was originally the Wanamaker Building, and its central atrium has featured multiple distinguishing attractions, the most important of which is the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ.

There it is: the largest functioning pipe organ in the world, with over 450 ranks, 28,750 pipes, and six manuals.  The instrument has survived various ownership changes over the years: it retains the name Wanamaker Grand Court Organ after the original proprietor and creator of the building.  John Wanamaker founded a men’s clothing company in 1861, which eventually grew and evolved into a retailer more closely resembling contemporary department stores.  In many respects, Wanamaker’s store was phenomenally innovative, claiming to be the first large-scale retailer to feature a restaurant, to install electric illumination, to feature elevators, telephones, pneumatic tubes for transferring cash, a ventilation system, a soda fountain, and, apparently, price tags.  Wanamaker owned property at the corner Market Street and South 13th Street since 1876, converting an old rail depot into what, through various incremental expansions, eventually solidified itself as the headquarters and flagship to a 16-location chain.  The current structure dates from approximately 1910, while the organ, originally designed by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company for the 1905 St. Louis World’s Fair, moved to the Wanamaker’s flagship store in 1909, taking over two years to reassemble.

Large as it was at the St. Louis Fair, the mighty instrument designed by George Ashdown Audsley was still inadequately beefy to reach the upper echelons of Wanamaker’s seven-story Grand Court.  Financiers continued to augment the organ after John Wanamaker’s 1922 death, adding 10,000 more pipes by 1930.  The tradition has been for the store to host two complementary concerts daily—one around noon and the other at 5:30pm—except Sundays.  (My suspicion is that Sundays were off-limits for two primary reasons: first was custom, since through much of the 20th century many businesses observed the Sunday Sabbath which John Wanamaker himself respected; secondly, it’s almost certainly more difficult to find available organists on Sundays, since many trained professionals have obligations at church services.)  The custom survived the remainder of the century, even during Philadelphia’s pronounced socioeconomic vicissitudes during the volatile 1970s and 80s, when, amidst high crime and white flight, the city as a whole lost approximately a quarter of its population.  Center City Philadelphia, which has always boasted one of the largest urban populations, still retained viable shopping at Wanamaker’s, no doubt in part because it is a large, vertically oriented building with just a few easily-supervised entrances.

Wanamaker’s also proved more resilient than its competitors: much of east Market Street served as the city’s “fashion district” up until postwar suburbanization.  By the 1980s, four of Philly’s original “Big Six” department stores along East Market had shuttered.  The flagship Wanamker’s prevailed against the odds.  Through much of its life, it hosted retail on all twelve floors, as well as bargain merchandise in the basement.  Various other rooms served as assembly-hall style events spaces, and the Crystal Tea Room operated as one of the world’s largest restaurants.  Wanamaker’s department store sustained itself through its luxury and lore for most of the twentieth century.  John Wanamaker’s expanded train depot achieved National Historic Landmark status in 1978.

However, aside from those diamonds on proud display in the Grand Court’s jewelry counters, nothing lasts for ever.  By the mid-1980s, after faltering business, Wanamaker’s 16-location chain accepted a purchase from DC-based Woodward and Lothrop (“Woody’s”), just before hosting the filming of the timeless Hollywood classic Mannequin.  Having decided that Philly’s downtown flagship was bigger than it needed, Woody’s sold the building to a private developer, who scaled back the merchandise showrooms and converted the upper levels—minus the space necessary to operate the Grand Court Organ—to offices, while the bargain basement became a parking garage.  The Crystal Team Room closed and turned into a ballroom.  Woodward & Lothrop leased the bottom five floors and, to the best of my understanding, retained the Wanamaker’s name.

Alas, Woody’s only endured for less than a decade.  It declared bankruptcy in 1995, selling the Wanamaker’s chain to the massive May Department Stores Company, based in St. Louis, which had already begun acquiring various department store chains, including my hometown’s L.S. Ayres, Cincinnati’s Pogue’s, and Houston’s Foley’s.  May Company converted the downtown location to the Baltimore-based Hecht’s, another recent acquisition.  Then, in summer of 1996, after acquiring Philly-based competitor Strawbridge & Clothier, it changed names again. But with another Strawbridge’s just a few blocks away (the other survivor of the Philly “Big Six” downtown department stores), yet another rebranding took place in 1997: to the upscale brand, Lord & Taylor, which May Company also owned.  After four name changes in just two years, Lord & Taylor survived but under a further diminished showroom, cutting the retail from five floors to three.

The photo above reveals the contrast that endured to the present: from where I stood in the Grand Court, fluorescence illuminates the retail space on floors two and three.  The darker fourth floor, above the Grand Court Organ, hosts office space that looks like it could have been upgraded last week.

Those levels completely lack the old-word opulence of the Grand Court, but they didn’t need that opulence even in 1997: a smaller, more refined brand like Lord & Taylor could only reasonably fill three of these formidable floors.  

Lord & Taylor prevailed for about the same time frame that Woody’s controlled this prestigious space, but in May 2005, Federated Department Stores Inc. (parent company of Macy’s) acquired May Company in the largest merger of them all.  This $11B deal brought numerous brands from coast to coast under a single name.  Lord & Taylor became Macy’s in 2006, while the Strawbridge’s a few blocks away, also under Federated, again became redundant and closed that same year.  The Center City Macy’s opened in August to great fanfare, including multiple complementary concerts on the Grand Court Organ.

For many years, Macy’s helped maintain the lavish traditions at the old Wanamaker’s: the Christmas Lights Show, Charles Dickens’s village, a balcony café (replacing the Crystal Tea Room), and, of course, the twice-daily shows on the Grand Court Organ.  But, reflecting customer trends I have repeatedly covered on this blog, Macy’s and its competitors have faced escalating competition from online shopping, much of it coming through amazon.com and a near-equal part through various fast-fashion startups, often from China.  In the ensuing years, the Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. (the next largest conglomerate of multiple department store brands) has closed completely, Sears is but a wraith of its former mighty self (with fewer than ten left…and shrinking), southern chains Belk and Dillard aren’t growing, and JCPenney is receding at much the same pace as Federated/Macy’s.  After each lackluster holiday season, most of the former titans of major downtowns (and suburban malls) announce their new closures; the dawn of 2025 sealed the fate for the flagship Wanamaker’s.

This time around, there’s no other department store to take its place.  Though long an above-average performer within the Federated/Macy’s portfolio (especially among downtown Macy’s locations), the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the property, forcing shutdowns that lingered in Philly well beyond most of Pennsylvania.  Many of the upper-level tenants discontinued their lease, reducing the Wanamaker building’s occupancy to a meager 23% in March 2024.  Since the time of the last closure (when Lord & Taylor ceded the building to Macy’s) virtually all other competing department stores are focusing their efforts and maximizing profitability in the remaining locations, rather than growing.  As a result, it is unlikely that the Wanamaker building will ever again function as a shopping mecca.

TF Cornerstone, the building’s owner, officially owns the remaining real property and fixtures within the interior, now that Macy’s cleaned its final inventory on March 23.  It has kept mum about its long-term intentions for the property, but indicates that much of the upper floors will likely turn to apartments or condos.  The yawning atrium that hosts the Grand Court Organ might look magnificent, but such vast interiors are difficult to monetize, particularly under a single user.  And this challenge in reinvention poses a profound threat to the Grand Court Organ itself.

The largest functional musical instrument in the world, Wanamaker’s Grand Court Organ is exemplary of the symphonic organ style, well suited to French Romantic music that remained loosely fashionable when the Los Angeles Art Organ Company first constructed it in the early 1900s.  In sharp contrast with German Baroque organs, the Grand Court Organ has a vast array of string-based ranks that intend to mimic the sound of a full orchestra; their pipes are wooden to give them that mellower sound that contrasts with metal and woodwind.

But the entire inner workings of the Grand Court Organ are as vast as one might expect, given the number of ranks involved.  

I haven’t ventured into this subject for many years but covered it across multiple sources back in the mid 2010s, first for a now-defunct Indy magazine SkyBlue Window, and then for The Episcopal Cafe; I also reproduced my extensive research on both classical pipe organs and theater organs for this blog.  As a church music director/organist and member of the American Guild of Organists, I have more than an amateur’s interest in the preservation of the Grand Court Organ.  However, recognizing an audience is probably less attuned to organ mechanics than I am (and I’m no great shakes), I can only cover this content loosely as it relates to the more pressing consideration of preservation.

Wanamaker’s/Hecht’s/Strawbridge’s/Lord & Taylor/Macy’s is closing.  No other department store will take its place.  As a result, the largest instrument in the world has an uncertain future.  What other building could accommodate it?  Most non-electronic pipe organs are custom-fit to the building; the closure of many old church buildings has spelt the demise of their organs.  During the Wanamaker era, the Grand Court Organ grew tremendously, so much that Wanamaker’s financed its own factory to ensure high-quality and fully compatible additions.   The evidence of its growth comes through the fact that some of the original rooms intended for the merchandise eventually ceded way to ever more pipes.  Note the elaborate trim on the ceiling in the photo below, featuring a room that might at one time have hosted women’s apparel but has been the domain of some of the organ’s many ranks for decades.

The instrument stretches across five floors.  We spent the most time during our tour at the orchestral division on the fourth floor, but a few of the Grand Court Organ’s most prominent manuals (keyboards) host their ranks on the second.  A few of the main pedal ranks are 32 feet long, extending two floors.

Meanwhile, the blowers are completely sequestered from the instrument; they’re too large to fit nearby.  If one were to combine all the floor space that encompasses the organ’s mechanics, it would likely be on par with a typical supermarket, all for a single musical instrument.

As for the console—the “mother ship” from which an organist performs and operates the instrument—the Grand Court Organ looks even more like an airplane cockpit than most.  The six manuals must rest along a slightly sloped and curved plane so that a performer can reach that high.  And the inordinately high number of stops requires considerable time in advance to build familiarity not just with the location of critical ranks, but the tone colors achieved through the nearly infinite array of combinations of registrations.  The photo series, all from the second floor of the Wanamaker building, illustrates the configuration, where the console overlooks both the Grand Court below and, pivoting 45° across the mezzanine-like space to another area, the gold-plated pipes on display.

The Grand Court Organ is, without dispute, the centerpiece that has long distinguished Wanamaker’s and its successors from other prestigious downtown department stores.  No similar instrument exists, let alone in a department store; its closest competitors are in the world’s greatest cathedrals or concert halls.  But the Grand Court Organ isn’t the only cherished element within the three remaining showroom floors of the Macy’s in its final days.

Outside of the central Grand Court, the peripheral merchandise showrooms may lack the spectacle but the architectural details remain.  Notice the cornice line and the matching capitals to the columns, as well as the elaborate wall installations, intended to mimic relief-based art.

Back in the Grand Court, the most important landmark is not large but still unmistakable.

Like the organ, this bronze eagle was a remnant from the St. Louis World Fair, and John Wanamaker’s team imported it about the same time.  Both entered the panoply of Center City Philadelphia icons more or less simultaneously; the phrase “Meet me at the eagle” resonated among Philadelphians for decades.  Any local would get the reference.  I neglected to capture a good front-facing image of the eagle, but the image to the left captures its formidable size; it’s much larger than the kids who freely climb on the sturdy avian replica.  Meanwhile, the image while below reveals how the raptor almost seems to stare at the mighty instrument.

Both the eagle and the Grand Court Organ are (to deploy a very trendy, overused term) “iconic” features of the Wanamaker Building.  But, as the tenancy changes and the New York-based TF Cornerstone determines the next use, friends and advocates have conceded that, amidst the current consumer climate, it may never even host retail again.  As a result, these landmarks will quite likely never claim the same accessibility to the public that they did as Wanamaker’s, Macy’s, or anything in between.  So what prevents TF Cornerstone from selling off the Grand Court Organ to another business entity with deep pockets?  For starters, its sheer size and complexity might obviate its relocation: most businesses don’t have the available space to dedicate to an amenity that might not pay off the shipping costs, let alone the months (if not years) necessary to dismantle and reassemble the instrument.  Furthermore, the installation of most pipe organs require architects and engineers, because the space itself must undergo significant modifications to fit, not just mechanically but acoustically.  Taking these limitations into account, it is virtually impossible to relocate the Grand Court Organ, so its devotees can only hope that it won’t suffer from long-term neglect, as its de jure owner balks at the cost for upkeep.  The eagle statue is a lot simpler: though bulky and heavy, it’s easy to envision a wealthy private collector purchasing the thing, shipping it to a private residence, and it never gets a public view again.

Mercifully, for the sake Philadelphia’s civic pride, both the Grand Court Organ and the eagle enjoy an added layer of legal protection.  Historic preservation regulations have protected the Wanamaker Building since 1971, when it first achieved National Register of Historic Places status.  Philadelphia added it to its own city-wide register of historic places three years later, while accounting for the organ; the highest honor of National Historic Landmark came in 1978.  And the Wanamaker Eagle entered the Philadelphia Register as a historic object in 2001.  Such protections are largely without precedent: most historic preservation regulations protect exteriors/façades, grounds, landscapes, or viewsheds.  Historically protected interiors are rare because they often inhibit even the most restorative efforts at redevelopment.  Real estate interests would challenge them, because it limits what they can do.  But the Philadelphia Historic Commission, thanks to a nomination by the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, unanimously approved adding the entire Grand Court to the Philadelphia Register in 2018—only the third protected interior in Philadelphia at that time.  This act significantly constrains modifications to the scale, structure, or aesthetics to this vast space, and any real estate developer (TF Cornerstone or any of its successors) will inherit these restrictions as deed covenants.  TF Cornerstone, therefore, knows that any future repurposing of the property will face the highest scrutiny.  Wanamaker aficionados can hope that this real estate company already fully understands this and perceives the Grand Court Organ, the eagle—heck, the whole interior—as an asset rather than an impediment.

Philly history buffs, organ lovers, department store devotees, and even NFL Eagles fans can take some comfort that the prevailing culture is one that overwhelmingly wants to see the Wanamaker Building protected as much as possible.  But are these regulations a surefire guarantee?  Alas, no.  Historic preservation regulations can force a property owner to run through a gauntlet of approvals, permits, community opposition, and even litigation.  But violating historic preservation regulations is a civil offense; a person cannot go to prison for exercising his or her rights as owner of a protected property.  Furthermore, in the absence of a steady relationship with an advocacy group that understands the Grand Court Organ, any owners may shirk the necessary routine maintenance, allowing the instrument to fall into neglect or even disrepair that takes years to restore.  And those restorative years might not happen; in other words, the owner could ignore it to the point of abandonment.  A massive golden albatross.

Whether long-term fans or fair-weather friends (and I can only claim to be the latter), we should hope the instrument doesn’t suffer this fate.  The owner has a well-organized assembly of advocates in the form of Friends of the Wanamaker Organ available to offer insight and continued publicity.  The organization has hosted tours and sponsored the daily concerts for years.  It is likely that the Friends can make strong cases for intermittent organ performances (with paid-for tickets, unlike usual) even in an otherwise vacant building.   The final day of music, March 22, offered a full day’s worth of concerts at every hour from 9am to 5pm, treating people to a vastly more elaborate version of what we experienced.  Pollyannaish though it may be to speculate this, the Friends of the Wanamaker might be able to finance the instrument’s upkeep through concert proceeds.

Until then, the future of the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ and eagle remain uncertain but optimistically steered in favor of a new life—and a comfy reintegration with society for whatever the next use of the lower floors of the Grand Court might be.  Performing arts venue?  Events space?  Food hall?  The world’s largest cheesesteak emporium?  The possibilities are near limitless.  But no matter what the next incarnation may be, it’ll come with one heck of a live soundtrack.