Qualla: Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ

Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cmcmcm1, CC BY-SA 4.0. The room had to be solved first. Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City was completed in 1929 as the largest unobstructed indoor space ever built - a barrel-vaulted auditorium 456 feet long enclosing 5.5 million cubic feet of air. Then the question was how to fill that air with music. No conventional organ could do it. No amplification existed in 1929 that could fill a hall that size without distortion. So Senator Emerson Richards of New Jersey, an amateur organist of unusual technical ambition, designed a custom pipe organ that would run on wind pressures four times higher than any organ ever built - loud enough to fill 5.5 million cubic feet by acoustic force alone. The Midmer-Losh Organ Company in Merrick, New York, signed the contract for $347,200 just before the Great Depression. The result is officially the largest pipe organ ever constructed: 33,112 pipes, seven manuals, 1,235 stoptabs, and the only organ in the world that holds Guinness World Records as the loudest musical instrument ever built.

Image: Cmcmcm1 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ: The Senator's Design

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cmcmcm1, CC BY-SA 4.0. State Senator Emerson Richards represented New Jersey's Atlantic County in the legislature for many years. He was also one of the most knowledgeable amateur organ designers in the world. When Atlantic City's Convention Hall was being planned in the late 1920s, Richards saw an opp...

Image: Cmcmcm1 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ: The Console

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The console - the keyboards and controls the organist uses to play the instrument - is the largest organ console ever built. It has seven manuals, three more than a standard concert organ. The bottom two manuals (Choir and Great) extend through seven octaves rather than the stand...

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ: The Loudest Organ Stop in the World

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cmcmcm1, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Grand Ophicleide in the Pedal Right division is - or was - the loudest organ stop in the world. The pipes are made of lead alloy of unusual thickness to keep them from cracking under their own sonic vibrations. The wind pressure is 100 inches of water column, roughly four tim...

Image: Cmcmcm1 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ: The 1999 Construction Disaster

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cmcmcm1, CC BY-SA 4.0. Between 1999 and 2001, Boardwalk Hall underwent a multi-year renovation. The organ curator position had been eliminated for budget reasons. Construction contractors moved through the building without any meaningful supervision regarding the instrument. Pipes were removed, stepped...

Image: Cmcmcm1 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ: The Restoration

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cmcmcm1, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2013 - twelve years after the construction damage - the Auditorium Organ was heard publicly again for the first time in forty years, played during the Miss America pageant with about 15 to 20 percent of the instrument restored to working order. The Historic Organ Restoration C...

Image: Cmcmcm1 | CC BY-SA 4.0