The organ’s fate is a mystery to me, but your theory makes perfect sense. The fellow who purchased it could very well have done so as a collector, with no intention of installing it in the Milton Theater. By the way, the purchase price included labor. His, not mine. At the time I thought the deal was a fair one. Still do. a.l.
In the sixties, the owner (I don’t remember his name) bought the Needham Theater’s pipe organ. This gigantic instrument had a console with several keyboards, a myriad of floor pedals, and an impressive array of stops. Its pipes were located behind louvers on either side of the proscenium, the tallest almost a foot around and at least ten feet high; the smallest resembling a cigar. It also had a drum, cymbals, and diverse other Rube-Goldberg-type contraptions. Powering the bellows, in a room below the stage, was a one horsepower electric motor (whose roar could be heard above any music the organ produced). I don’t think the buyer intended to install it in the Milton theater, but, rather, to use it elsewhere. I recall the selling price. It was $300. alvan levenson
Alvan Levenson was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and grew up in Brookline, graduating from Brookline High School in 1954. He was not in attendance at graduation ceremonies, however, having joined the U.S. Marine Corps on his seventeenth birthday. While other members of his class were marching down the aisle to receive their diplomas, he was marching through the swamps of Parris Island with an M1 rifle in his hands.
While writing JACKALS FEASTING, Levenson met Dorothy Magette, a Princeton University graduate with a Ph.D. in comparative literature, who began editing his work. With a dissertation that had focused on Balzac and Dickens, she provides Levenson with a valuable perspective regarding political corruption, the courts, and the machinations of lawyers.
The couple are happiest now sharing their experience. Offering hope to those struggling against the forces of greed and injustice. If an ordinary citizen perseveres against powerful wrongdoers, Levenson asks¾shouldn’t that be inspirational to others?
The organ’s fate is a mystery to me, but your theory makes perfect sense. The fellow who purchased it could very well have done so as a collector, with no intention of installing it in the Milton Theater. By the way, the purchase price included labor. His, not mine. At the time I thought the deal was a fair one. Still do. a.l.
In the sixties, the owner (I don’t remember his name) bought the Needham Theater’s pipe organ. This gigantic instrument had a console with several keyboards, a myriad of floor pedals, and an impressive array of stops. Its pipes were located behind louvers on either side of the proscenium, the tallest almost a foot around and at least ten feet high; the smallest resembling a cigar. It also had a drum, cymbals, and diverse other Rube-Goldberg-type contraptions. Powering the bellows, in a room below the stage, was a one horsepower electric motor (whose roar could be heard above any music the organ produced). I don’t think the buyer intended to install it in the Milton theater, but, rather, to use it elsewhere. I recall the selling price. It was $300. alvan levenson
http://www.harryelliot.com/
Levenson Biography
Alvan Levenson was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and grew up in Brookline, graduating from Brookline High School in 1954. He was not in attendance at graduation ceremonies, however, having joined the U.S. Marine Corps on his seventeenth birthday. While other members of his class were marching down the aisle to receive their diplomas, he was marching through the swamps of Parris Island with an M1 rifle in his hands.
In 1953 Levenson’s father bought the block of stores that included the Paramount Theater (the original name of the Needham Cinema) from the building’s former owner and builder, David Murdoch, a Needham Selectman. At the time, the theater had a single screen, a stage, a working pipe organ, and a spacious balcony. It was managed by a gray-haired gentleman, Ernie Warren, who was reputed to have known most of its patrons my name, and who maintained discipline by admonishing misbehaving youngsters with the threat of telling their parents.
When, in September 1954, Hurricane Carol slammed into Massachusetts killing his father, the U.S.O. flew Levenson back from his assignment aboard the carrier Yorktown to attend the memorial service. After returning to duty, he remained in the Pacific until receiving his Honorable Discharge in 1957.
Levenson then attended Tufts University, commuting from his mother’s home in Brookline while, at the same time, helping her manage the Needham property. Also as a student, he volunteered at Harvard’s Phillips Brooks House (a community outreach provider) where he worked with children at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham. He expanded his responsibilities there by launching a program to transport the young patients to the Needham Theatre for Saturday matinees. During his tenure as a volunteer, a group of children, accompanied by attendants, would file out of their yellow bus, up the back stairs, and into the first three rows of the balcony.
Levenson graduated from Tufts in 1962, married the divorced actress, June (Martino) Lion, and settled in Newton. Their marriage ended in a crippling divorce fictionalized versions of which, Levenson, writing under the pseudonym, Harry Elliot, depicts in his novels.
After his divorce, dispossessed by lawyers who committed forgery to acquire his property, Levenson spent the next eight years fighting eviction from his barely-winterized cottage in Plymouth. He countered his Dukakis-connected adversaries on two fronts: in court, pro se, without a lawyer, where he was badly outgunned, and in the pages of his novels, most recently the BEACON HILL TRILOGY: JACKALS FEASTING, self-published in 2003, its unpublished PREQUEL (a reworking of DIVORCE, DUKAKIS STYLE), and the just-completed CIRQUE DUKAKIS. Although privy to many of the activities of the Dukakis crowd, he was not inclined to write an exposé or non-fiction account of their devious and even illegal (forgery) behavior. He has learned that, in Massachusetts, well-connected lawyers and corrupt courts answer to no one, and that fairness cannot be achieved through debate and polemics. Accordingly, using a pseudonym, he chose to people his experiences with fictional characters in human-interest stories. Most of us know fairness and justice when we see it¾and that, according to Levenson, is what his books are all about.
While writing JACKALS FEASTING, Levenson met Dorothy Magette, a Princeton University graduate with a Ph.D. in comparative literature, who began editing his work. With a dissertation that had focused on Balzac and Dickens, she provides Levenson with a valuable perspective regarding political corruption, the courts, and the machinations of lawyers.
The couple are happiest now sharing their experience. Offering hope to those struggling against the forces of greed and injustice. If an ordinary citizen perseveres against powerful wrongdoers, Levenson asks¾shouldn’t that be inspirational to others?