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NEWS RELEASE
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Additional Information: Brigid Fuller (831)
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| Rare Wurlitzer 165 Band Organ from San Francisco’s Playland Gets New Home in Santa Cruz |
SANTA CRUZ, CA (March 30, 2007) – The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk announced that a rare Wurlitzer 165 Band Organ from the former Playland-At-The-Beach in San Francisco has a new home in Santa Cruz. The organ shipped to San Francisco’s Playland amusement park from the Wurlitzer factory in upstate New York in December, 1918. San Francisco’s historic seaside amusement park Playland-at-the-Beach, closed in 1972.
The Santa Cruz Boardwalk will have the only working Wurlitzer 165 known to be on display in California. The organ is being installed and tuned this week, and is expected to be playing inside the carousel building daily starting March 31st. “We are very proud to be able to preserve this beautiful piece of California amusement park history,” said Charles Canfield, Santa Cruz Seaside Company president. “Many people around the San Francisco Bay Area may remember this organ from childhood visits to Playland.”
According to band organ expert and historian, Tim Trager, "The Wurlitzer Style 165 band organ was a highpoint in band organ engineering. Its orchestral pipework, expression, and percussion are controlled by a sophisticated duplex perforated paper roll system which allows the instrument to play the music of a concert band. Each selection featured on the vintage music rolls is a nostalgic time capsule of history allowing the instrument to perform the same music heard by the patrons of Playland years ago. There are less than a dozen Wurlitzer Style 165 band organ known to exist. Most are in private collections."
Band organ expert Don Stinson of Stinson Organs in Ohio is working with Boardwalk staff to set up and tune the Wurlitzer in the Boardwalk’s Looff Carousel Building this week.
The Boardwalk’s original carousel organ, an 1894 Ruth und Sohn, is currently at Stinson Organs for refurbishment. A new display area is being prepared inside the Boardwalk’s carousel building, beside the Boardwalk’s 1911 Looff Carousel, a National Historic Landmark. The new exhibit will eventually showcase the Boardwalk’s three antique organs: the recently acquired Wurlitzer 165, a smaller Wurlitzer 146, and the Boardwalk's original 1894 Ruth und Sohn organ. All three organs are expected to accompany the historic Looff Carousel later this year.
Playland’s Wurlitzer 165 has been owned for the past two decades by Hayes McClaran. McClaran, a band organ collector and restorer, commissioned a former MGM scenery painter to redo the organ's facade with California historical scenes in the Wurlitzer style. A striking scene at the top of the organ shows San Francisco’s turn-of the-century Cliff House.
The Boardwalk purchased Playland's "Laughing Sal" in 2004. Laughing Sal can be seen (and heard!) near Neptune's Kingdom at the Boardwalk. The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is the last of the great seaside amusement parks on the West Coast and is celebrating its Centennial this summer.
About the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Celebrates "100 Years and Millions of Memories" in 2007. California’s only major seaside amusement park is admission-free and features thrill rides, restaurants, miniature golf, video game arcades, and family bowling, all located on a mile-long sandy beach.
For general information, call (831) 426-7433 or (831) 423-5590, or visit www.beachboardwalk.com
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