Pipe Up!

Waterfront Pavilion to Feature Historic Pipe Organ

A new and exciting project, that will bring music and magic to the people of San Francisco, is brewing at the foot of Market Street and Embarcadero, in front of the historic Ferry building. The Waterfront Pavilion will be a cultural facility that will become the permanent home of the 1915 Exposition Organ. The 7,500 pipe organ was originally built for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition, in celebration of the completion of the Panama Canal and a testament to the city’s tenacity to rise from the ashes of the 1906 earthquake.

The initiative to bring the historic pipe organ to the waterfront is thanks to a collaboration between the San Francisco Department of Recreation and Park and the Committee for the Waterfront Pavilion, a volunteer group of San Francisco residents representing a wide spectrum of the community, under the fiscal sponsorship of the Friends of the Rec and Park. Its task is to raise funds to build the pavilion and install the historic organ. Upon completion of this task, a non-profit organization to be called "Friends of the Waterfront Pavilion" will be organized to preserve, maintain and administer the Waterfront Pavilion and the historic organ as well as to develop and produce free outdoor concerts.

The Waterfront Pavilion will become the center of a burgeoning renaissance taking place at the Embarcadero Waterfront since the dismantling of the Embarcadero freeway in 1991. Its idyllic location and accessibility will make it as one of the city’s premier attractions, becoming the biggest outdoor organ pavilion in the country. Free yearlong organ concerts and collaborative performances reflecting the city’s multicultural heritage will be presented.

The Exposition organ enjoyed tremendous popularity from 1915 till the late 1950’s. With the advent of big bands and rock and roll music, the organ’s popularity waned and it fell into disrepair. Various efforts were made to maintain the instrument but the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake severely damaged it. A Citizens’ Committee to Preserve the Organ secured funds from FEMA to repair the instrument. Subsequently, the San Francisco Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, together with the Committee for a Safe Embarcadero, sought assistance from the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor to secure a permanent home for the organ.