The American Theatre Organ Society is striving to preserve the culture of the theatre pipe organ. Their site’s Story of the Theatre Organ describes the origins, design, downturn, and rebirth of the powerful instrument that accompanied the rise and fall of the old time movie palaces. The SF Bay Area has “more world-class theater organs than any area in the country” and David Hegarty has played them all. He appears almost daily at the mighty Wurlitzer in San Francisco’s Castro Theatre and twice a week at Palo Alto’s Stanford Theatre. I’ve enjoyed the grand nostalgia of Stanford’s glorious organ many times.