Marr & Colton
1928

Updated through online information from Frank Sele. -- Sometime in the late 60's the LA chapter of ATOS was seeking to relocate this organ to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. This fell through when the Reginald Foort traveling Moller was installed in the Civic. A group of LA ATOS members and I visited the Warner to survey the organ. The theatre had been converted to Cinerama. A suspended ceiling was installed over the auditorium and all the decorative plaster work on the walls was covered with curtains. The console had been lowered on its lift and a concrete floor was poured covering the area over the console as well as the rest of the orchestra pit. The electrical connections to the blower had been cut. On examining a large electrical panel in the basement the name "ORGAN BLOWER", although painted over, could be seen. A long extension cord was spotted in a corner and the blower was connected to the electrical panel. When switched on, the organ actually played although you could hardly hear it at the console due to the concrete and it was barely audible in the theatre due to the curtains. This was unfortunately short lived when the odor of burning rubber was detected as the extension cord gave up the ghost. The organ had a marimba but not just an ordinary marimba. The stop tab was engraved "GUATAMALIAN MARIMBA". As I recall, "GUATAMALIAN" was squeezed into the width of the stop tab - possibly a record. When the Foort organ was donated, the Marr and Colton no longer had a home and it was given to the the Arizona ATOS where I understand it was broken up for parts. Most of the 8' octaves were on offset chests which allowed the 4' and higher pipes to be on shorter chests allowing them to be stacked making for a compact installation.

Identified through online information from Jim lewis. -- This organ was built originally in 1924 for the Piccadilly Theatre in New York City. It was moved in 1928 to the Warner Bros. Theatre in Hollywood, CA. It had four manuals and 28 ranks. The white/gold console was mounted on an elevator at the center of the orchestra pit. Pipework was disbursed in the early 1970s.