Mighty WurlitZer Leaving Memphis

[Roger Memphis]

This fine old gal (Louise) is being crated up and sent off for a $500,000 restoration. I thought some of you Theatre Enthusiasts might enjoy this article in today's Memphis Commercial Appeal. Many years ago, I spent most of my lunch hours playing this organ. At that time, they welcomed players just to help keeping her "exercised." She has had a lot of use in recent years, but has been declining. The renewed enthusiasm has brought about this renewal project. I hope this link works for you. I had to double click on the front page article to enlarge it.

http://memphiscommercialappeal.tn.ne...id_subscriber&

Enjoy !
Roger Memphis

[toodles]

Glad to hear that it is being restored as an original instrument.

[Kurzweil]

You may need to search. The article is dated 29 June and the term "Wurlitzer" will find both the lead on page one and the conclusion on page 13.

[Ben Madison]

I hope they keep orginal relay in operation and restored. Now adays its a great thing to rip the thing out and put in a computer sytem in.

[Kurzweil]

Putting in a computerized relay is being found to have similar issues as putting modern double pane windows into a historic building restoration. They find the replacements don't even last twenty years while the originals may have been 150 years old. That computer based relay only slightly exceeds the life of a computer, support and parts vanish in less then a decade and time to do it all over again. Glad to see someone advocating the restoration of hardware that took 50 to 100 years to fail.

[michaelhoddy]

The originals might be much older, but the amount of cost and maintenance hours over the years required to keep a large electropneumatic or electromechanical relay actually working properly is significant and really adds up over time. A lot of older original relays "sort of" work- dead notes, dead stops, non-functional combination actions. Solid state relays, even if they do indeed last less long on a component level, either work, or they don't, and the replacement cost of components, when leveled with the maintenance and repair costs of the original, is far less.

There are a lot of good things to be nostalgic about. Old electrics generally are not one of them, at least when it comes to overall economics and functionality! Perhaps on an engineering or historical level, but when it comes to actually having to fix it or play it, not so much.