The Wanamaker Organ – Inside the world’s largest operating musical instrument

Most Philadelphians don’t realize that the largest working musical instrument in the world is built into one of the city’s landmarks, the former John Wanamaker department store, now Macy’s, at 13th and Market streets.

The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ at Macy’s is a 7-story-high contraption bigger than most people’s houses, even rich people’s. The vast maze of 26,677 pipes and baffles and bellows and wires and wooden stairways lies hidden behind what many of us have always thought was the Wanamaker Organ.