shtroubleshoot

As far as the Wanamaker Organ was concerned, the main problem with past Christmas shows was that the instrument was covered by a huge theater curtain, muffling the Organ’s sound and robbing the hall of reverberation. Until the Grand Court was repainted for the American Bicentennial in 1976, this sound-deadening continued throughout the year as plush curtains hid side-wall seasonal tableaux of the Nativity and blanketed the towering Christmas Cathedral opposite the Organ. Those features were permanently removed about 1975.

Recently the organ case itself has been left uncovered, with the Magic Christmas Tree standing before it. Spotlights now illuminate the case in brilliant shifting holiday colors and patterns. Much of this re-design was spearheaded by Wanamaker Organ curator Curt Mangel. By placing the Organ in the forefront of the show, Curt allowed the Reigning Monarch of All Instruments to weave its spell in special productions that join the Tree and organ with imaginative lighting effects as Peter Richard Conte plays festive Yuletide music. The result is a popular sensation that rivals those in other cities, including the New York Radio City show and the great Rockefeller Plaza Christmas Tree.

The Macy’s Parade Studio redesign has also helped lessen the common retail criticism that Christmas comes earlier each year, because the show is able to be put up much more quickly. In days of yore the curtain was installed in late September and removed by early February after the last characters had been removed. Each character was individually hoisted and connected. Because of its complexity, the Wanamaker show took the efforts of at least three men to install it. The prolonged after-hours schedule was partly due to its being done as overtime after employees’ daily shift, and also for the safety of customers. Al Goessler of the Wanamaker staff supervised the work and the show’s operation. Just hauling up Santa’s train to the very top of the Court could take from closing ’til opening the following morning.

The Show itself was computerized in the 1970s but nonetheless required two operators to run it. Since the Macy’s rebuild, the show is entirely automated. Macy’s installed winches in the ceiling and began hanging the lighted figures on horizontal trusses that can easily be raised as a unit, enabling sections to be set up and removed in considerably less time.

Macy’s has also enlivened Market Street with a series of fanciful windows spreading holiday cheer to the sidewalks. Festive holiday music from sidewalk speakers adds to the enchantment of this grand old department store tradition.

Wanamaker’s maintained a large Toy Department at the south end of the Eighth floor. It included a real monorail for kids that made a circuit around the department from 1946 to 1984, and a sprawling electric-train layout. The rocket monorail cars have been moved to the Please Touch Museum.

John Wanamaker was a leading Christian layman and founder of Bethany Presbyterian Church, and his family built on that faith. During the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s the Grand Court included a Christmas Cathedral at the rear (also with a thick blue-green drapery behind it) that had a Nativity scene as its focus and saints and bells in its towers. Cathedral-like arcades on the second floor held statuary showing Biblical stories including the Annunciation and Flight into Egypt, and the Main Floor had a series of Gothic pavilions atop each sales counter that were likewise lighted to give an air of enchantment to the entire Grand Court.

Side aisles were draped in repeated festoons of greenery with wreaths at each top corner. In the first half of the 20th century it was a famous John Wanamaker tradition to have a Christmas Carol sing-along on Christmas Eve, and songbooks were regularly given to customers. Organist Mary Vogt would push buttons from a device at the console and the page number of each Carol would be projected.

During Lent and Easter paintings of the Passion of Christ by the celebrated Hungarian painter Michael de Munkacsy were hung in the Grand Court.  These paintings had been sent on an international tour following their completion and thousands paid admission to see them. Leading newspapers and clergy were profuse in their praise of the characterizations. So precious were these paintings to John Wanamaker that he paid the highest price received by any living artist to date (estimates vary from $100,000 to .$175,000 each). Before 1908 they hung in his country home Lindenhurst. When that home burned to the ground in 1907, neighbors cut them from their frames and rescued them. After Mr. Wanamaker’s death the paintings were hung in the Grand Court annually and were displayed at the New York 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, before being sold in 1988. Choirs and orchestras frequently played special programs of sacred music during this period.