Is the Wanamaker Organ safe? And what does ‘safe’ mean?

On Thursday, before the news broke publicly that Macy’s would be departing from Center City, the Wanamaker Building resonated with a long, sorrowful sigh. Dylan David Shaw, the organist on duty at the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ that day, opened the daily noon recital with “Nimrod” from Elgar’s Enigma Variations.

Anyone who knew the secret language of music got the reference immediately.

“It was a death,” said Michael Lisicky, a Baltimore Symphony Orchestra oboist and department store historian who, upon hearing rumors of the impending announcement, came up to Macy’s for the recital.

“Nimrod” is often brought out at funerals and other somber occasions — most notably by the British monarchy — but it’s not yet clear what the demise of Macy’s in Center City means for the organ. TF Cornerstone, the New York firm that owns the space, did not respond to messages seeking comment on plans for the instrument.

Change, however, seems inevitable, and there is good reason for concern around the period of uncertainty beginning with Macy’s expected closure in mid-March. The Wanamaker Organ offers perhaps the only daily, free, public musical experience in the city. That’s rare in any sphere, and the fact that it’s in ours places a special responsibility on all of us to make sure it continues.

Moreover, architecturally and socially, there’s more at stake than just the organ. The Wanamaker Grand Court may be privately owned, but it has long functioned as a public square. It is as much a public right-of-way as the Reading Terminal, Elfreth’s Alley, or Independence Hall. Any building owner or developer violates the terms of this tradition at their own risk.

So it makes sense that, in 2017, the Grand Court was granted a spot on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.

“When you stand in the Grand Court, just about everything you see that is attached to the building is protected,” says Paul Steinke, executive director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, which filed the 2017 nomination.

But while many have interpreted this protection — which includes the organ — as absolute, Steinke says it offers no guarantees on the organ’s future. It simply means that any removal or change must be approved by the Philadelphia Historical Commission. And when it comes to weighing preservation against the wishes of developers in this city, we’ve seen a shocking amount of the city’s historic fabric destroyed in recent years.

More significantly, not all of the organ is protected by its inclusion on the register. Many know that the large gold visible pipes are just decorative. But as preservation advocate Jay Farrell points out, major parts of the organ are not visible from the court, and these parts are not protected. The Wanamaker Building is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which, the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ says, also covers the organ.

It’s not hard to imagine a potential new tenant who doesn’t ask that the organ be altered or moved, but that it be silenced — kept in place and mothballed. Safekeeping during any potential renovations is also a concern; construction dust and water are enemies of an instrument’s health. Water damaged the instrument during one previous building renovation, writes Ray Biswanger, executive director of the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ, in his book Music in the Marketplace.

But the strongest case for the organ might not rest on preservation or nostalgia. It’s about creating a lively future for this important urban linchpin. The ornate Wanamaker Grand Court is vast and impressive — 150 feet high, or about the same height as the Kimmel Center glass dome. To hear the organ there is to feel it, so strong are the vibrations. The combination of sound and sights creates a sense of awe that’s not unlike a cathedral. It is our Notre-Dame.

And it’s inherently more inclusive than a cathedral. It’s a precious community gathering space and a place for rediscovering what it means to stand elbow to elbow in a crowd and feel part of something bigger. That something is powerfully humanizing.

If you think this exaggerates what one department store organ can achieve, recall Opera Philadelphia’s visit in 2010, when hundreds of choristers showed up in the store and surrounded shoppers with the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah with organ accompaniment. The YouTube video still gives me chills, and others must agree. It has been viewed 9.6 million times.

That experience sits at one end of the scale — big, public, brimming with a sense of commonweal. At the other end is the personal, like the impact of walking into the store at noon expecting sheets on sale and instead tearing up to a 10-minute organ transcription from Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier.

At Monday afternoon’s recital, I saw several distinct types of visitors: a couple of dozen listening closely, and those who walked through the Grand Court craning their necks for the source of the sound with a what-the-heck? expression on their faces.

One couple danced an impromptu pas de deux to the music as they approached each other.

There’s something particularly powerful about stumbling on unexpected bolts of poetry in prosaic settings. It’s one of the things great cities have in common.

Macy’s and the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ have been wonderful stewards to the instrument, with both contributing cash and resources to its upkeep over decades. But sometimes there’s been a sense of it being a private pleasure, an enterprise involving a small corps of devotees. The organ is a high-impact emotional experience, and that experience needs to be extended beyond aficionados to more special events, like the concert the Philadelphia Orchestra did there in 2008.

The organ needs partners — the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Ballet, schools and social service organizations, tour groups. It needs to be raised up several notches of visibility so it’s seen in the same way as other city treasures.

This is also a moment to wonder whether the lower spaces in the Wanamaker Building are best continued as selling floors. Given the fickle nature of retail, might they be better used for cultural purposes? — say, a Philadelphia museum, as architect Richard Maimon suggests.

“It would be comprehensive, but focused on the great postcolonial industrial period — manufacturing, railroads, retailing, culture, the ‘workshop of the world’ and everything that entails,” says Maimon, a partner at Philadelphia firm KieranTimberlake. “Think of the old Atwater Kent but at the scale of a grand museum in a meaningful space.”

The history of Philadelphia beyond the colonial period is not told well anywhere, he notes.

“I think the cultural component could extend to sports history, which would be a big draw.”

To many, the departure of Macy’s feels like a tipping point for Center City, in part because we live in an era where the first reaction to change is to assume the worst.

But now the Grand Court, the organ, and the eagle sculpture have an even bigger role to play as the ceremonial gateway to a revived Market East, whatever form that may take. The city should not accept anything less than the highest and best use of this space. Not merely in the real estate definition of the phrase, but, more importantly, in the civic sense.

Organ recitals are expected to continue at Macy’s in Center City, 1300 Market St., Monday to Saturday at noon and 5:30 p.m., through March 22 or 23. wanamakerorgan.com.

The article has been updated with details of the organ’s protection under the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.