From the ashes
In the September 2005 issue of The Diapason, I wrote about the destruction of a venerable pipe organ in a Boston church. E. & G. G. Hook’s Opus 253 of three manuals and 25 stops was built in 1859 and was destroyed on Tuesday, January 18, 2005, in a five-alarm fire that gutted the First Baptist Church of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. The response of firefighters was such that the parsonage (just a few feet from the church building) and the rest of the close urban neighborhood were preserved. But the church’s loss was deeply felt in the community and in the wider world of those who appreciate historic organs. [See also “In Memoriam E. & G. G. Hook, Opus 253 (1859–2005),” by Leonardo Ciampa, in the March 2005 issue of The Diapason.]
Many professional organists and organbuilders will argue that E. & G. G. Hook was among the finest organbuilding firms in the history of the art (See Photo 1: Hook factory). Under three different names (E. & G. G. Hook, E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings, and Hook & Hastings) the firm produced over 2,600 instruments in its more than 100-year history. The factory was located in Roxbury (another of Boston’s neighborhoods) on a site now occupied by Northeastern University, about two miles from Jamaica Plain. Until the Jamaica Plain fire, three of the seven surviving pre-Civil War Hook organs were located on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain within easy walking distance of one another. George Greenleaf Hook, the younger of the Hook brothers, lived less than two blocks up a side street from Centre Street. What a neighborhood!
Television news broadcasts carried the story while the fire was burning and Boston’s organ community crowded the phone lines. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Ashlee Wiest-Laird, was prominent in both television and newspaper reporting, assuring the congregation and the community that they would rebuild. The publicity surrounding the fire included much information about the organ, making it clear that the church was well aware of its importance and the heritage it represented. Mariko Irie, the church’s current organist, past organist Leonardo Ciampa, and local organist and friend of the congregation Lois Regestein all joined Pastor Wiest-Laird in asserting the intention that the rebuilding of the church would include the acquisition of a comparable organ to replace the loss. The smoke cleared and the dust settled. A double-wide trailer was installed on the church yard providing space for worship and meetings. Committees went to work to plan the rebuilding project. It became clear that the walls and steeple of the building could be retained, but the entire interior and roof would have to be replaced. (See Photo 2: First Baptist Church)
A glimmer . . .
My work frequently takes me to New York, a city rich in great churches with wonderful organs and organists and outstanding music programs. The city is so crowded that outside the grand public parks there are few places where the actual earth is apparent through the pavement. It’s something of a surprise to see real dirt when walking past a water-main repair in progress. As such, there is precious little open land available in the city so real estate developers are perfecting the practice of adding high-rises on top of existing buildings. An institution such as a church can realize a powerful economic boost by selling air rights above their building.
In August of 2005 I received a call from The Rev. Dr. Edward Earl Johnson, pastor of the Mt. Moriah Baptist Church in Harlem, on Fifth Avenue in New York City. His church was planning a large-scale renovation project stemming from the sale of their air rights and plans for construction of a large condominium development overhead. The back wall of the sanctuary would be drastically rebuilt to provide support for the new building—in the wall were the chambers that housed an old pipe organ they weren’t using any more. Could the Organ Clearing House help? The next time I was in the city, I visited Mt. Moriah, and what did I find but a three-manual organ built by E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings in 1872—the year that Frank Hastings was made a partner in the firm! (See Photo 3: Opus 668, Mt. Moriah Baptist Church)
Opus 668 was originally built for the Church of the Disciples on Madison Avenue in New York. It was moved to Mt. Moriah by Hook & Hastings early in the 20th century where it was installed in two chambers on either side of a choir loft above the preacher’s platform—a very unusual installation for a 19th-century tracker-action organ! Trackers assisted by a pneumatic Barker-lever machine ran more than 30 feet from the keydesk under the floor of the choir loft to the Swell division. A study of the organ’s building frames implies that the instrument was also originally installed in two locations—the free-standing structure that supports the remote Swell is “original equipment.”
I must admit that because of the unusual configuration of this organ, I had some trouble imagining how it might be relocated. But I promised Dr. Johnson that I would try to find a new home for the organ, took photographs and measurements, wrote down the stoplist, and posted the organ on the Organ Clearing House website as #2112. I gave it the headline, “the wonders of technology,” reflecting the presence of the Barker-lever machine that allowed the split installation. Look at a photo of the installation and you would never recognize this as a Hook organ. But glance at the stoplist and you’ll have no doubt. A call from Lois Regestein suggested that a colleague of hers had noticed the listing on the website and wondered if the organ might be a candidate to replace Opus 253 in Jamaica Plain. What a thought. If the organ had been installed twice in divided configurations, why couldn’t it be reworked into a more common layout and take its place in the neighborhood where it was built?
E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings, Opus 668
Great
16' Open Diapason
8' Open Diapason
8' Viola da Gamba
8' Gemshorn
8' Doppel Flute
4' Octave
3' Twelfth
2' Fifteenth
III Mixture
8' Trumpet
Swell
16' Bourdon
8' Open Diapason
8' Stopped Diapason
8' Viola
4' Violina
4' Flauto Traverso
2' Flautino
8' Cornopean
8' Oboe
Choir
8' Geigen Principal
8' Dulciana
8' Melodia
4' Flute d’Amour
2' Piccolo
8' Clarinet
Pedal
16' Open Diapason
16' Bourdon
8' Violon Cello
It was a poignant moment, gathering with pastor, organist, moderator, and parishioners in the temporary trailer in the shadow of the burned church building to discuss this exciting possibility. In March 2006 an agreement was signed between the First Baptist Church of Jamaica Plain and Mt. Moriah Baptist Church of New York for the purchase and sale of the organ. On April 24, 2006, the crew from the Organ Clearing House arrived in Harlem to dismantle the organ. One important detail remained. There were not even architectural plans for the rebuilding of the burned church. We needed a place to store the dismantled organ. It was Pastor Wiest-Laird who worked the magic. Earlier in the year a large church building on Centre Street had been vacated (the Casavant organ had been purchased by a parish in San Antonio, Texas and dismantled and shipped by the Organ Clearing House). While plans for the future use of the building were being developed, it would be available for the storage of the organ from Harlem. So just a few months after removing one organ, we placed another in storage in the same building!
Construction is under way at Mt. Moriah Baptist Church. Opus 668 is safely in storage in Jamaica Plain. The First Baptist Church is proceeding with their planning process. Stay tuned for future developments. Send your donations to:
The Organ Fund
Pastor Ashlee Wiest-Laird
The First Baptist Church
633 Centre Street
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-2526
The Phoenix Project
A year ago, Hurricane Katrina caused widespread destruction along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, especially in Mississippi and Louisiana. And in February of this year a series of fires, intentionally set, destroyed rural church buildings in Alabama. Laurence Libin, recently retired Curator of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and newly elected vice-president of the Organ Historical Society, responded by conceiving the Phoenix Project, an initiative of the OHS supported by the American Institute of Organbuilders and the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America. This exciting project is for the purpose of placing “redundant” pipe organs in churches that have suffered such losses. If you know of such a church that needs a pipe organ, or of one that has an organ to give away, contact Laurence Libin at
As the Organ Clearing House is a good source for experienced pipe organs, Mr. Libin and I corresponded several times about the Phoenix Project. I would soon be in New York for the dismantling of the Mt. Moriah Hook organ, and I suggested we might get together. When I told him what I was up to, his deep appreciation of historic musical instruments got the better of him, and he volunteered to help. I told him to wear old clothes! He spent two days with us immersed in pipe organ preservation. In fact, he had pipe organ preservation all over him. If you haven’t seen it first hand, you cannot imagine how deep is the dirt in a pipe organ that has been sitting still for a hundred years in New York City. Walking through a hotel lobby at the end of the day creates quite a spectacle. (See Photo 4: Bishop and Libin)
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
When a pipe organ is made available “free to a good home,” there is almost always a string attached. The cost of relocating and renovating the organ is still there. The church that receives a free organ will likely have significant expense attached. However, that cost is typically competitive with the price of an electronic instrument, and but a fraction of the price of a new pipe organ. The Phoenix Project is a wonderful way for any church that has suffered loss through disaster to obtain a fine pipe organ.
There’s more than one way.
I believe that I am safe in saying that many readers of The Diapason share a concept of an effective church music program. There is a choir of adults, perhaps another of children, perhaps another of teenagers. There is an organ, a piano or two, a library of anthems. The organist/music director plans programming and rehearses the choirs. The congregation is used to singing three or four hymns in the course of a service. Music is offered at regular worship services, festivals, funerals, and weddings. Get the picture?
There is a lot of talk and action these days about alternative forms of musical expression in public worship. Praise bands, folk instruments, and rock-and-roll have found their place in the church. It’s here to stay. Recently I was participating in a public forum about organ music, and an audience member asked what I thought about such new trends in church music. I answered that what we consider to be a traditional music program is what works for me, that I know that many churchgoers are spiritually fed by alternative and contemporary forms of church music, and that whatever music is offered in church as part of worship should be the very best it can be—that contemporary should not be synonymous with poor quality.
If you would like to hear public worship offered in a special language, I recommend the choir of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, 2050 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. You will hear a splendid Gospel choir—exquisitely trained, enthusiastic in their presentation, singing from memory, accompanied by a wizard on a Hammond organ. Terrific. They have toured churches in Brazil several times, and people come from far and wide to share their art. The night before we began dismantling the Hook & Hastings organ there, people from the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain visited New York, shared a meal with the people of Mt. Moriah, and worshipped together. A wonderful witness of the work of the wide church, and testament to the work of a great organbuilder from another age. @nic.com>
