Paul R. Marchesano on February 27th, 2023:
Opus 696 is installed above the ceiling of the auditorium in a space n1.easuring eighteen by thirty-two feet. The organ speaks through a grille into the auditorium below. The Echo was placed in a separate location. The console was located in a balcony at the left side of the auditorium floor, facing the stage. The specification demonstrates Bell's influence, with emphases on 8' pitch; large-scaled, leather-lipped diapasons; seventy-three-note manual chests for 161 and 8' stops only (not 4'); and celestes drawing both ranks, the unison ranks not able to be drawn separately. Atypical is the number of stops left unenclosed on the Great division. The flue voicing was completed on April 10, 1929; reed voicing was completed on April 17. The swell boxes were to be 2" thick and "tightly fitted." -- *2007 OHS Atlas*

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Database Manager on April 2nd, 2008:
Updated through on-line information from James R. Stettner.

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Database Manager on July 17th, 2007:
Additional notes and photographs under the entry describing 1949 additions by Aeolian-Skinner.

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Database Manager on April 21st, 2006:
Identified through information adapted from <i>E. M. Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner Opus List</i>, by Sand Lawn and Allen Kinzey (Organ Historical Society, 1997), and included here through the kind permission of Sand Lawn: <br><i> Designed by John Bell; altered & enlarged in 1949, console relocation, #696-A; addition of two identical divisions. one in a balcony and the other on stage - of four ranks each, #696-B; new five-manual console in 1972 by Reisner.</i>