| Organ Grinder Restaurant | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Restaurant information | |
| Established | August 1973 |
| Closed | February 1996 |
| Food type | Italian |
| City | Portland |
| County | Multnomah |
| State | Oregon |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 45°29′10″N122°34′46″W / 45.4862°N 122.5794°W |
The Organ Grinder Restaurant was a Portland, Oregon pizzeria in operation from 1973 to 1996. At one point it housed the largest theater pipe organ of its type in the world.
The Organ Grinder opened August 26, 1973, at 5015 Southeast 82nd Avenue between Foster and Holgate as a joint venture between the Forchuk brothers and Dennis Hedberg. [1] [2] The financing was provided by the Forchuks, and the organ and instrument expertise was provided by Hedberg. [1] The original opening was for members of the American Theatre Organ Society. It opened to the public on September 27, 1973. [3] It was an immediate success, with mean sales of $8,000 per night. [4] The central location in Portland was initially a significant factor to its success, owing to the ease of access from the city and its suburbs. [4] A second location was opened in Denver, Colorado in 1979, utilizing parts of organs Hedberg had acquired in order to expand the Portland location's capabilities. [3] [5] The restaurant became fully owned by Hedberg in April 1985. [6]
A confluence of factors caused the demise of the company, among them financial troubles unrelated to the restaurant suffered by Paul Forchuk in the late 1970s, the failure of the Denver location due to drug activity, and failure of Earthquake Ethel's (a Portland nightclub that was part of the Forchuk/Hedberg partnership), the decline of 82nd Avenue businesses as I-205 was opened in 1982, and the opening of a Chuck E. Cheese's in the mid-1980s a few blocks away. [7] [8] [5] By late 1995, Hedberg could not perform needed roof repairs or parking lot maintenance. [5] Attempts at finding investors in order to relocate the restaurant were unsuccessful. [5]
The Organ Grinder closed in 1996. [2] [7] When the restaurant closed, the organ was sold for parts. [1] The Diaphone pipes were moved to Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa, Arizona. The console was moved to Conference Center in Groton, Massachusetts. [1]
Hedberg's goal was to assemble an organ that contained every type of pipe and percussion that was ever available from the Wurlitzer organ firm, [1] and to further his research into tremulant physics. [6] The organ was assembled from a 3-manual, 13-rank organ originally housed in Portland's Oriental Theatre. [1] [6] Additions from several other organs were then acquired, including 32' Diaphones and a Vox Humana from the Portland's Liberty Theatre, [6] [9] a 32' Contra Bourdon from Boston's Old North Church, tympani from the Brooklyn Fox, and parts of other organs originating from Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, and Maine. [6] It eventually grew to 51 ranks consisting of nearly 4000 pipes. [1] [7]
Hedberg did manage to assemble every major voice that had ever been used by Wurlitzer. [6] Effects never associated with a Wurlitzer organ were also added, including a dive alarm originally from a submarine. [6] By 1988 the organ had become the largest Wurlitzer pipe organ in the world. [6] The original three-manual console was moved to another "pizza and pipes" restaurant in nearby Vancouver, Washington, when a four-manual console from Boston's Metropolitan Theatre was installed. [1] [7]
During performances, a mechanical monkey playing cymbals was regularly brought out to perform with the organist as Sousa's Washington Post March was played. [7] [3] A live monkey named Pizza Pete was also utilized alongside a hurdy-gurdy player. [7] Pizza Pete would roam the dining room and beg for tips to fill a tin can. [7] Regularly scheduled silent movies were shown on the hour, accompanied by the organ. [8] [4] [3] A costumed "Mitzi Mouse" character was also part of the show. [6] Bubble machines were installed in the ceilings with the purpose of appealing to children. [4]
The organ was a central attraction for theater organ enthusiasts on several occasions. It was part of the 1973 convention of the American Theatre Organ Society. [6]
In 1985 the restaurant initiated a program of "Old-Time Gospel Music" played on Sunday afternoons. [6]
The building was designed to appear as an oversize Diaphone resonator. [1] The architect of the building itself was Will Martin of the Martin, Soderstrom, and Matteson architectural firm. [4] The organ console was placed in the center of the dining room floor. [7] It was designed to seat 450 people, and had three levels of seating including the balcony. [4] The walls were of unfinished cedar. [4] Marquee lighting was prevalent throughout the interior at ceiling divisions. [4] Most recently the building hosts a Chinese buffet named "Super King".
The organ was housed in glass chambers which could be viewed externally and internally to the restaurant. [6] In order to keep the instrument in tune, refrigeration equipment weighing twenty tons was installed to effect a constant temperature within the chambers. [6]
The Organ Grinder was known to serve pizza of better quality than the average "pizza and pipes" location. [7] Unfortunately for the Organ Grinder (and its patrons) the dough-making equipment was outdated, and could not produce enough to keep up with demand. Therefore frozen dough was purchased, and the pizza quality suffered considerably, giving the Organ Grinder a poor culinary reputation that remained long after the equipment problems were rectified. [3] Of particular note was a taco pizza named Percussion Pizza. [7] Onion rings were also served. [8]
In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions or other means for producing tones. The organs have usually two or three, up to five, manuals for playing with the hands and a pedalboard for playing with the feet. With the use of registers, several groups of pipes can be connected to one manual.
An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed into several types of instruments:
A theatre organ is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films from the 1900s to the 1920s.
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the United States. Wurlitzer enjoyed initial success, largely due to defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. military. In 1880, the company began manufacturing pianos and eventually relocated to North Tonawanda, New York. It quickly expanded to make band organs, orchestrions, player pianos and pipe or theatre organs popular in theatres during the days of silent movies.
An organ pipe is a sound-producing element of the pipe organ that resonates at a specific pitch when pressurized air is driven through it. Each pipe is tuned to a note of the musical scale. A set of organ pipes of similar timbre comprising the complete scale is known as a rank; one or more ranks constitutes a stop.
The Byrd Theatre is a cinema in the Carytown neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. It was named after William Byrd II, the founder of the city. The theater opened on December 24, 1928 to much excitement and is affectionately referred to as "Richmond’s Movie Palace". Though equipped with a Wurlitzer pipe organ, the theatre was also one of the first of its kind to be originally outfitted for sound motion pictures.
An organ recital is a concert at which music specially written for the organ is played.
Organ Stop Pizza is a restaurant located in Mesa, Arizona. It is known for being the home of what it says is the largest Wurlitzer theatre organ in the world. The organ is played 363 days a year, with private groups before opening hours, making it the most played organ in the world. The organ is powered by three Spencer turbine blowers, spinning at 1800 RPM with a combined 60HP, moving 10,000 cubic feet of air. The Wurlitzer has more than 6,000 pipes. The largest pipes are 32 feet long and could fit four people inside. The core of the Wurlitzer pipe organ at Organ Stop Pizza was built for the Denver Theatre in Denver, Colorado, and was installed in 1927 for silent movies. It saw service there until the 1930s. The organ was rebuilt in 1975 for the Mesa Organ Stop Pizza location. The Wurlitzer was later expanded to include pieces from other Wurlitzers.
Robert Hope-Jones was an English musician who is considered to be the inventor of the theatre organ in the early 20th century. He thought that a pipe organ should be able to imitate the instruments of an orchestra, and that the console should be detachable from the organ.
The Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ, known also as the Midmer-Losh and the Poseidon, is the pipe organ in the Main Auditorium of the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company. It is the largest organ in the world, as measured by the number of pipes.
The Bartola Musical Instrument Company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, USA, was a producer of theater pipe organs during the age of silent movies.
The Paramount Theatre is a concert venue in Denver, Colorado, located on Glenarm Place, near Denver's famous 16th Street Mall. The venue has a seating capacity of 1,870 but is a popular destination for large acts looking for a smaller concert setting. With spelling as Paramount Theater, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Stan Kann received national recognition in the 1960s when he was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show and daytime television talk shows, showcasing his collection of vacuum cleaners. Kann also was known among theatre organ aficionados for his 22-year tenure as resident organist at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Oriental Theatre was a movie theater located at 828 SE Grand Street in the East Portland commercial district of Portland, Oregon that was built in 1927. The Oriental was a 2,038-seat movie palace designed by Lee Arden Thomas and Albert Mercier. The building's exterior was in the Italian Renaissance style. The interior had an "almost surreal appearance" created by interior designer Adrien Voisin. It was built by George Warren Weatherly. Demolished in 1970, the theater was adjacent to the Weatherly Building, which remains standing.
Martin Ellis is an American church, concert and theatre organist. He is currently the organist for Rose City Park Presbyterian Church in Portland, Oregon. He was Principal Organist and Assistant Music Director at North United Methodist Church, and Senior Staff Pianist/Organist, Staff Arranger and Orchestrator for the Indianapolis Children's Choir and Youth Chorale in Indianapolis, Indiana until August, 2014. He works with Gresham High School's Theatre Arts Department as their resident piano accompanist.
The Castro Organ Devotees Association (CODA) is an American nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and enhancing the tradition of live organ music in San Francisco's Castro Theatre. The theater is a popular San Francisco movie palace, built in the 1920s, which gained Historic Landmark status in 1976. The original Robert Morton organ was removed in the 1950s. The present organ, widely regarded as one of the finest theatre organs assembled, was assembled in the late 1970s using components from other organs, including its console, which was originally built in 1925 for the State Theatre in Detroit, Michigan to accompany silent pictures. The current console and organ were built by the Taylor family starting in 1979, and it has been owned and maintained by them since, but in 2014 they moved taking the console and one fourth of the pipework.
The Oaks Park Roller Skating Rink is a roller rink at Oaks Amusement Park, in Portland, Oregon's Sellwood neighborhood, in the United States.
Dan Bellomy was an American organist who performed on pipe and electric organs. Bellomy's theater organ performances were acclaimed for their inclusion of the jazz idiom, and he was at times described as a pure jazz organist. He wrote scripts for and directed several local television shows.
Richard William "Dick" Leibert was an American musician who was the chief organist at New York City's Radio City Music Hall between 1932 and 1971. He also had a radio program of organ music on the NBC Radio Network in the 1930s and 1940s, along with making phonograph recordings on the RCA Victor and Westminster Records labels.
...used a portion of it in the Organ Grinder Restaurant in Portland; most notably the 32' Diaphones and 4 rank Vox Humana chorus...