When it opened in 1929, Atlantic City’s Convention Hall was considered a symbol of excess. Six years later, the New York Times dubbed it “the greatest convention hall in the world,” noting at the same time that the city had flung itself into bankruptcy to build it.

One of the most excessive—and impressive—features of old Convention Hall, the pipe organ, is still part of Boardwalk Hall today, though it’s fallen into disrepair. In many ways, the story of the Boardwalk Hall organ is the story of the city itself, told in microcosm.

Though the Hall opened in May 1929, the organ wasn’t finished until December 1932—tough years, when the city and the country struggled through the worst of the Great Depression. Like the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt a month earlier, the organ’s debut was a sign of hope.

One of the city’s more important citizens designed the organ. Emerson L. Richards was a longtime state senator who, in 1918, oversaw a marathon six-week legislative session that revised enormous parts of the state’s law books. He served as an assemblyman, state senator and acting governor, and was the majority leader in both houses. A lifelong Republican, he was for a time an active major with the U.S. army while serving in the Senate.

Richards was also a musician, and, when his hometown opened the world’s biggest meeting hall, he figured that it needed the world’s biggest pipe organ. According to Dennis McGurk, the organ’s longtime curator, Emerson was interested only in building an organ bigger than the one in Wanamaker’s Philadelphia store (now Lord and Taylor), neglecting the effect of weather and location on it.

Emerson designed a behemoth of an instrument—it officially had 33,114 pipes, though most experts maintain that it “only” had 32,000. Still, it was massive, and with more pipes, manuals (keyboards), and stop keys than any other organ. Its tallest pipe stands a full 64 feet. It was later recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as both the largest and the loudest instrument in the world.

Built by Midmer-Losh, a Merrick, New York, organ builder, the organ was rather unpopular when it debuted. Several residents objected to footing the $350,000 bill for an instrument regarded as a rich man’s toy. Mimder-Losh was forced to sue the city to collect payment, and ended up insolvent despite winning the case. Therefore, Convention Hall’s managers chose to downplay the grandiosity of their organ, hoping to avoid further controversy by keeping a low profile.

The organ was used for everything from serious classical music to accompanying ice skaters. By the late 1990s, it was rarely used, though organ enthusiasts from around the world regularly made pilgrimages to play the mammoth instrument.

From the start, maintenance seems to have been a constant struggle. The great hurricane of 1944, which put some highways under as much as five feet of standing water, flooded the Hall and the organ’s compressors; the damage was never completely repaired. Through the years, assorted floods, leaks, animal interlopers, and dust did their damage, shutting down various parts of the organ.

Renovations to Boardwalk Hall haven’t been kind to the organ, either. In 1998, the organ’s right stage chamber was operable—before work on the Hall began, organ aficionados recorded a performance of the instrument. The $90 million overhaul that ended in 2003 won awards for restoring the Hall to its former glory, but wreaked havoc on the organ. Unskilled workmen bent pipes, improperly insulated, and deliberately cut cables, effectively destroying what had been one of the few still-working sections of the organ.

Around the time of Boardwalk Hall’s reopening, experts estimated the cost of the organ’s rehabilitation at around $10 million. While this seems high, one has to wonder whether it really is so expensive. A new casino bar, for example, can cost around $2 million, and may last 10 years before being converted into a slot zone.

Recently, discussions about converting the Hall into a retail operation, similar to Washington, D.C.’s Union Station, in conjunction with a massive hotel casino development under consideration by Donald Trump and Steve Wynn, have revived talks about renovating the historic organ.

Last year, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority won a $100,000 “Save America’s Treasures” grant to “support restoration of the organ.” So far the authority has provided $1.16 million for the effort, as well as established the Historic Organ Restoration Committee, Inc. to oversee the restoration and its funding. The dedicated Atlantic City Convention Hall Organ Society has also been instrumental in the attempt to raise funds for the project. This clearly marks the beginning of a revival for this long-suffering Boardwalk original.

By David Schwartz

David G. Schwartz (www.dieiscast.com), an Atlantic City native, is the Director of the Center for Gaming Research at UNLV and the author of several books, including Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling.