Presto

Presto Buyers' Guide
Analyzes and Classifies
All American P i a n o s
and in Detail Tells of
Fheir Makers.
PRESTO
E.tabtt.hed IM4. THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
Presto Year Book
The Only Complete
Annual Review of the
American Music In-
dustries and Trades.
10 Cent.; f2.00 a Year
CHICAGO. SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1925
terior decoration. The motifs employed have been
drawn from the foremost sources of decoration being
used both here and abroad. The color schemes arc
being developed with great care as they are always
so tremendously essential to the display of fine in-
struments.
The fifth floor is to be occupied by radio, music
Plans of Warren & Wetmore, Architects, for roll and phonograph record departments and careful
attention has been given so that comfort and service
Fourteen-Story French Limestone Temple
will be possible to the purchaser.
to Be Erected on Upper Fifth Avenue,
Organ Salesrooms.
Approved by Aeolian Company.
The organ salesrooms are to be located on the
fourteenth floor and will have a large and small
organ room. In conjunction with these rooms will
be a library of Duo-Art organ rolls.
Probably no building ever erected for similar en-
Great Structure on Site Occupied by William Rocke-
terprise will go so far in splendid decoration and
feller Mansion to Be Completed Early
harmony.
Next Spring.
History Recalled.
Announcement is made of the acceptance of plans
The return of The Aeolian Company to Fifth ave-
and specifications by The Aeolian Company, New nue after an absence of twelve years in West Forty-
York City, for its new building at Fifth avenue and second street recalls that it was Albert Weber, piano
Fifty-fourth street. The William Rockefeller man- maker in Seventh avenue, who first established a
sion presently occupying the northwest corner site is business house in Fifth avenue. At that time the
soon to be razed and work started upon the new street was lined with the residences of the very
Aeolian Hall structure. Construction will continue wealthy and fashionable clubs, many of which con-
through the fall and the building completed in the tinue today in the city life. Weber, a pioneer, was
early spring.
The plans show a four-
teen-story building with
set backs above the ninth
floor, leading up to a
central tower. The set
back floors have balus-
ters in carved stone and
both the Fifth avenue
and Fifty-fourth street
facades are marked with
balconies, carved stone
buttresses and stone gar-
lands, while the first
two floors have very
high ceilings, magnificent
s h o w windows, framed
in carved stone mould-
ings with an entrance on
the avenue corner, and a
m a r q u i s carriage en-
trance on Fifty-fourth
street.
The walls are to be of
French limestone of pink-
ish cast, carried on a
steel frame. The lower
s t o r i e s will be embel-
lished w i t h
ornate
bronze.
Exterior Feature.
Warren & Wetmore.
the architects, have de-
signed a stone structure
with one of the main ex-
terior features being a
window comparable only
with the company's pres-
ent one, in West Forty-
second street, which is
known all over the coun-
try for its size a n d
NEW AEOLIAN HALL IN UPPER FIFTH AVGNl'B.
beauty. The main en-
Designs by Warren & Wetmore Approved, and Construction Will Start in
Immediate Future.
trance is featured at the
corner of the building
and gives entree to an enormous floor of great a great believer in the avenue and it was a revolu-
height and dignity where piano instruments are to be tionary move for a piano manufacturer to set up a
wareroom apart from the factory. His site was at
displayed.
The elevators from this reception hall lead to a the southwest corner of Fifth avenue and Sixteenth
street across the avenue from the mansion of Wil-
recital hall on the second floor of rather intimate liam H. Webb, the great American ship builder, who
size, and to the piano and organ warcrooms on the built "Dunderburg" and many of the 90-day gun-
upper floors. The recital hall has a seating capacity boats which terminated the Civil War.
of about 250 persons, and as designed, gives promise
The Weber business was merged with The Aeolian
of being a beautiful hall of splendid proportion and
Company a decade ago which company had then
acoustic value. The remainder of the second floor
moved from its lower Broadway to the then fashion-
is devoted to exceptionally line display.
able Madison Square neighborhood in Twenty-third
street. Further pioneering, The Aeolian Company, a
Spacious Piano Warerooms.
quarter century ago moved to the building at Fifth
The third and fourth floors are entirely devoted to avenue and Thirty-fourth street adjoining the resi-
piano warerooms, and the Aeolian designers have dence of the late A. T. Stewart, and it was located
spared no effort in making these the most beautiful
here for twelve years.
salesrooms ever conceived. They are to be decorated,
Moving Northward.
in accordance with the finest ideals of modern in-
Still moving northward, The Aeolian Company,
NEW AEOLIAN
HALL DESIGNS
A DESIRABLE SITE
WAR PUZZLE SCHEME
STOPPED IN FT. WAYNE
Action of Better Business Bureau of Indiana
City Results in Action by
Postal Authorities.
A definite understanding that the "Great War Puz-
zle" scheme, recently introduced in Ft. Wayne, -Ind..
will be discontinued immediately, has been reported
by the Ft. Wayne Better Business Bureau to the
National Vigilance Committee of the Associated Ad-
vertising Clubs of the World and the Music Indus-
tries Chamber of Commerce.
The warning advertisement by the Ft. Wayne
bureau, published in newspapers in which the puzzle
advertisement originaly appeared resulted in a large
number of calls, and in gathering additional informa-
tion of the operations under the puzzle scheme. The
puzzle advertising will not be accepted by the Ft.
Wayne newspapers.
The members of the Ft. Wayne Music Dealers'
Association are pleased with the developments in
relieving the local trade of a form of competition
which years ago was regarded as harmful. It was
the association which first reported the matter to
the Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, which
in turn enlisted the interest of the Associated Adver-
tising Clubs. The Ft. Wayne bureau had been in
touch with the local music dealers for weeks, and
previously attempted to stop the store of the puzzle
advertiser. This brought the various better business
factors into close co-operation.
The postofnee authorities are also investigating
the puzzle scheme as developed in Ft. Wayne.
STATE TRADE ASSOCIATION
PLAN OF MICHIGAN DEALERS
Organization Meeting Set for September 10 and 11
at Pantlind Hotel, Grand Rapids.
Kenneth W. Curtis, back from a trip through
Michigan, announces that the music dealers of that
state have been seriously considering and planning
for a state organization of their trade. An organiza-
tion meeting will be held at the Pantlind Hotel at
Grand Rapids, on Sept. 10 and 11, at which time a
permanent organization will be formed. C. H. Hoff-
man has been unanimously chosen as temporary
chairman to put through this organization.
Mr. Hoffman and Charles BurtzlofT, Michigan trav-
eling representative for the Kohler Industries, both
deserve credit for quite a bit of time and hard work
put in to get this organization under way, A golf
party has already been decided upon and a tourna-
ment will be held.
WILL L. BUSH ENDS TRIP.
Will L. Bush is back at his Chicago headquarters
from a ten days' tour through Iowa and various
points in Missouri, Nebraska and Illinois, fringing on
that great commonwealth. As to trade prospects and
the present outlook Mr. Bush is outspoken and de-
cidedly optimistic. "The heated spell," says Mr.
Bush, "is a god-send. It's making corn and corn
makes hogs and the two items are putting grand o'd
Toway' on this year's map good and big. Corn is
king this year and hogs a good second."
Jesse French & Sons Piano Co., Exchange Hotel
Building, Montgomery, Ala., is showing the latest
in records, sheet music and Victrolas, and telling the
vacation possibilities of the instruments.
twelve years ago, erected its eighteen-story building
in Forty-second street, running through the block to
Forty-third street, midway between Fifth and Sixth
avenues. This building was recently sold when the
Aeolian directors determined to move northward,
again on Fifth avenue, when the William Rockefeller
residence was acquired in association with Commo-
dore Charles Gould.
It is expected that contracts covering the construc-
tion of the new building will be let in the next few
davs.
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/