Presto

Presto Buyers' Guide
Analyzes and Classifies
All American P i a n o s
and in Detail Tells of
Their Makers.
PRESTO
E,tabu.h*d 1884. THE'AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
Presto Year Book
The Only Complete
Annual Review of the
American Music In-
dustries and Trades.
to cent.; $2.00 « j>«r
CHICAGO, SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1924
IN NEW YORK'S
NEW PIANO ROW
Remarkable Transformations in the Retail
Warerooms and Displays in the Fast-
Changing Trade of Manhattan's
Fifth Avenue.
UP IN THE BRONX
Some Glimpses at the Handsome Interiors and the
Men Whose Responsibility It Is to Look
After Them.
Go where you may in the New. York trade, you
will hear the same song in the same key. It is that
sales are scarce. But if the song starts in a minor
key, it changes when the talk reaches ahead into the
fall season.
''We're going to have business then,'' the piano men
of New York say cheerfully enough.
And so they will.
* * *
New York's new and really splendid Piano Row,
on 57th street, is already the pride of the local trade.
The piano palaces of lower Fifth avenue years ago
and later of Forty-second street have faded into drab
commonplace by comparison.
* * *
The new Chickering Hall causes memories of the
handsome building which adorned Fifth avenue at
17th street in days long past to pale before the struc-
ture now nearing completion. New York is already
beginning to point to the latest Chickering Hall, on
57th street, as one of the wonders of modern archi-
tecture.
* * *
The stately new Steinway Hall, a short distance
west of the building dedicated to the Boston piano,
will be an even more magnificent contribution to the
art-of "frozen music." It is well under way and will
put the final word to piano enterprise and progress.
Fifty-ninth street will soon be the greatest cen-
ter of music in the world.
* * *
Isn't it a delight in the jostling and rumbling of
this great, noisy world to find men of large affairs
who maintain the Chesterneldian calm and dignity of
other years?
When a caller—even a casual visitor—enters the
sumptuous reception rooms of the American Piano
Co., in the old Knabe Building, and asks for W. B.
Armstrong, he meets with no wicker window cere-
mony.
* * *
l't is all open. A girl whispers the caller's name
into the phone and is told to "step right on in." Or
"Mr. Armstrong is in an important conference. Won't
j'ou call again, or will you wait?"
And First Vice-President W. B. Armstrong looks
as buoyant and chipper as he did when he was "on
the road," hitting the tank towns, selling pianos from
Rochester.
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New York is—well, it's New York, and there's
nothing else just like it. You can see more strange
sights there than anywhere else on earth.
And some of the sights are in the music business.
Others have more or less to do with music.
* * *
There has been a lot printed about the noises of
Tin Pan Alley. But even Theodore Rogers Lyons,
maker of live "copy" and the "Imps," would be lone-
some in Tin Pan Alley just now.
You can walk a block there and not hear a sound
of jazz, or a yellow-song yawp. Perhaps the deni-
zens of syncopated delirium are r'l away in the
nountains, or doing their stunts by ihe seaside.
It's silent in Tin Pan Alley, anyway, just now.
* * *
On 135th street, in the center of the smoky sec-
tion, there is a colored music store. And whether by
design or accident, the show window had, in the
midst of its decorations, a little wooden negro dancer
gyrating upon a small black phonograph.
And a half-dozen song titles presented the por-
traits of colored composers and singers.
It's a real sure's-you're-born colored music store.
And its owners are colored, too, and writers of coon
songs.
* * *
Up in New York's "black belt" there hangs a large
black sign on the front of a big black building, by
which the public is notified that the "Colored Per-
formers' Social Club" is quartered there. And that's
a noisy corner, even in dog days.
* * *
On Tuesday of last week a funeral procession
passed along 135th street, and every carriage was
horse-drawn—not an automobile. It was just as the
mourners used to go cemetary-ward twenty years
ago. In what other city could you witness such a
sight?
* * *
Out on Southern boulevard, where two streets
come to a point is a piano factory on the front of
which arc nearly as many names as there were colors
in Joseph's coat.
And one of the names is "Lincoln Piano Co." That
name used to be in use by a western piano concern.
But Lincoln is always a good name, whether for an
avenue or a cheap piano.
* * *
Most piano men can recall the time when the work-
ing hours in a piano factory could scarcely be said to
have a beginning or an end.
Nowadays the working hours are short.
On the outer doors of a piano factory on Southern
boulevard the announcement is made clear that the
"hours are from 7:30 a. m. to 4 p. m."
* * *
The new Story & Clark Piano Co. warerooms, on
57th street, present some unique features. The hand-
some building was originally the palatial home of
some wealthy Knickerbocker. When it was re-
arranged the first floor was so designed as to present
the appearance of a second exterior within the big
front doors.
The effect is that of a quaint balcony such as is
arranged for the favorite love-making scene in
"Romeo and Juliet." Upon looking up at the bal-
cony it is impossible not to imagine beautiful, golden-
haired Juliet leaning over, listening to the ardent
wailing of the amorous Romeo.
And the entire arrangement of the Story & Clark
warerooms is unique and beautiful, even to the pose
of Wholesale Manager Beverly in his snug little office
on the third floor front.
* * *
Right next to the Story & Clark Building is the
equally handsome Sohmer structure. It, too, is im-
posing, though just now the main wareroom is some-
what torn up by preparation for another improve-
ment.
Alex McDonald is in 'Frisco, attending the Pacific
Coast dealers' convention. But it's a delight to be
entertained by Retail Manager Mann.
PRACTICAL WISDOM
AT THE CONVENTION
Points of Permanent Value Presented by Ex-
perienced Piano Men at the San Francisco
Meeting of Western Members of the
Trade.
USEFUL SUGGESTIONS
Eastern Men Exchange Views on Selling and Store
Conduct with Their Far-West Con-
temporaries.
A report of the recent convention of the W'estern
Music Trades Association appeared in last week's
Presto. But there were so many good things said
at the meeting, and the affair was of such general
trade importance that the following resume will be
of permanent value to dealers who study trade doings
for their own good and gain.
There were about two hundred members of the
music trades in attendance at the opening of the
Western Music Trades at the St. Francis Hotel on
July 22nd in San Francisco.
Philip T. Clay, of Sherman, Clay & Co., opened
the proceedings with a tribute to the late George R.
Hughes, original general chairman of the convention,
and of the late George S. Marigold, president of the
Southern California Music Trades Association.
Speaking of the national conventions, etc., Mr.
Clay said: "I do know that many of the ideas which
were exchanged there (in the East) have been of lit-
tle benefit to us on the Pacific Coast. Our condi-
tions are so different from those existing anywhere
else. Our distance to the base of supplies means an
entirely different system of financing. The cost of
do : ng business on the Pacific Coast is greater."
For these and for other reasons enumerated, Mr.
Clay proposed to confine the deliberations of the con-
vention to those things which would be of advantage
to the Western music merchants.
For Closer Co-operation.
"Local Associations" was a subject on which sev-
eral speakers were to have given views. E. A.
Geissley, vice president of the George J. Birkel Co.,
Los Angeles, made the opening address on the sub-
ject. Mr. Geissler said, in part:
"Look about you where you will, and talk with
the men who do things in any line of business en-
deavor, no matter whether it is in the selling of mer-
chandise, the selling of fire insurance, manufacturing;
no matter what its interest, and you will find these
businesses, professions and industries that are best
*
=F
*
Frank C. Decker—it seems as if we had known him founded are those that co-operate more closely with
always, though he is still a comparatively young association ideas and are free to dwell upon the
man—is up in the Adirondacks enjoying himself, as value of the association. in the upbuilding of their
he deserves. The Decker & Sons factory, on 135th respective lines."
street, doesn't seem natural without him. But they
Conventions, the speaker said, are the outgrowth of
are shipping fine pianos there right along, though it associations. "Associations develop many new ideas
is the summer season.
and correct, by personal contact trade abuses and
bring about better understanding, making it pos-
sible to meet on common ground, engendering a bet-
OBJECT TO PHONOGRAPH.
Charles Roupf of the Roupf Piarfo Company, ter and kindlier relationship and gradually causing
Dayton, Ohio, who is defendant in a suit to restrain us to meet with open minds for the discussion of
him from operating a phonograph and amplifier in those things that lead to trade betterment."
Price Maintenance.
front of his place of 1) iness, thinks that art is on the
decline in the city of s pride. The seventeen mer-
In the portion of the address devoted to "Legisla-
chants who brought
suit say the continuous play- tion," Mr. Geissler said: "We are now facing a most
ing of one record for urs is undermining the morale important national legislation in trade regulation for-
of their employes.
jre is something for the Cruel- merly discussed as Price Maintenance, a subject upon
ty to Music Lovers . ciety to investigate.
which there is a wide difference of opinion. The
music trades proper, as a whole, is in favor of the
bill, while the department stores, dry goods associa-
WILLIAM S TRAUCH A GUEST.
William Strauch, )f Strauch Bros., New York tions and other interests are lined up against it.
The speaker advised dealers, in localities where as-
piano and playerpiano action industry, is a Chicago
visitor this week. He was the guest of friends at sociations have not been formed, to keep in touch
the Chicago Piano Club luncheon on Monday noon. with their congressmen and senators, urging the pass-
The Strauch action is one of the unfailing signs of a ing of this bill. He instanced some of the benefits
piano's excellence and Mr. Strauch is as good and conferred on the trade, by associations, and said that
dependable as the action in the creation of which a most important part of the work of Mr. Farquhar-
he has been largely instrumental.
v
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