Restoring the Organ
Incredibly, pipe organs in public high schools were once common. Irvington High School had an Estey, Central High School in Newark had a Möller. A dozen public schools in New York City had full pipe organs, as well as Trenton and Kearny, New Jersey. In 1927, the taxpayers of South Orange and Maplewood invested $15,484 to furnish Columbia High School with a pipe organ from the most prestigious American organ maker of the day, E.M. Skinner.Considering the cost was equivalent to forty-one Ford Model T automobiles, its unsurprising only seven public schools ever installed an E.M. Skinner organ. Only one remains unmodified, complete, and in its original location… at Columbia High School.
Few Skinner organs remain from the seven hundred or so built between 1901 and 1932. It is estimated that perhaps eighty or a hundred still exist in their original form. While dismissed as terribly passé for many decades, interest in Skinner organs has burst from the shadows in recent years.
Recognizing the masterwork reputation of E.M. Skinner and the remarkably original condition of the Columbia High School instrument, the school was recently presented with a citation by the Organ Historical Society.
Remarkably, there is even a charity that was solely created to finance the restoration of just E.M. Skinner organs from 1901 to 1932. In the past, this foundation has given fifty percent grants of as much as half a million dollars.
It is the intention of the CHS Organ fund to raise sufficient funding to restore the organ. Funding will be sourced from grants, organ aficionados, and local residents.
The restoration of the organ will be to its original form, in accordance with the Organ Historical Society Conservation Guidelines
The total amount needed from all sources is approximately $400,000. Can you help restore the Skinner Organ at Columbia High School?