newyorkny

This is the Koch & Droge Piano Co., Inc., 1096 Broadway, Brooklyn, New York. Same image in newspaper clipping from "The Voice": (www.victor-victrola.com/KochDodge.htm) The records advertised in the left display window, are, from left to right, baritone Titta Ruffo, The Monastery (Munasterio) on Victrola 87323; tenor Enrico Caruso singing "Serenata" (Memoirs of a Concert), on Victrola 88628 (recorded September 11, 1919), and baritone Guiseppe Di Luca with "Beau Soir" on Victrola 64934, which was recorded on March 21, 1919. All three records were released in April 1921 and cost $1.25. The left poster in the far right window bills contralto Louise Homer and her daughter, soprano Louise Homer, singing "Oh Morning Land", recorded April 30, 1920 and released on Victrola 87575 in April 1921. The middle poster on the far right advertises Billy Murray, "She Gives Them All The Ha! Ha! Ha!", which appeared on Victor 18732, also in April 1921. Since this record was part of Victor's popular black label series, it only cost 85 cents (www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOpHOqCZ0e4). This is followed by a song called "Serenade", probably the version by violinist Efrem Zimbalist, which appeared also in April 1921 on Victrola 64936. Accordingly, the big list with the Nipper dog in the left front corner must advertise the "New Victor Records April 1921". If the image could be blown up, one would probably find the same records also listed in the "Advance Record Bulletins for April, 1921" in "The Talking Machine World", March 15, 1921, page 183: archive.org/details/talkingmachinewo17bill/page/182 The store advertises the German-language records Victor produced for the immigrant market because the area where the store was, Bedford-Stuyvesant, was at that time still populated by many German-speaking immigrants; in fact, even the names of the store's owners, Koch and Droge, are clearly German. Finally, the advertising panel in the back with the child riding a hobby horse in front of it says, "Give the Children a Victrola of their own!" Victor had their own line of children's records, and with about 1/3 of American households already owning gramophones at that time, it is apparently time to promote buying a second machine for the same household.

Wow! Thanks, xiphophilos ! What a wealth of information, from the photo itself as well as from other sources. We will update the catalog record with some of these details.

LoC owns pictures of some of the promo posters as well:

Koch & Droge Piano www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q96804011

Hi de ho!

One of the greats, from a great period

He was one of the reasons people thought radio was great. They were right.

Did you ever see that funny Reefer Man ?

Congrats on Explore! ⭐ January 15, 2024

This is, I believe, a photograph of the Saint Paulinus (“Royal”) bell-foundry in Heiligerlee, displaying the 42-bell carillon commissioned for Saint Martin's Church in New York.

“Since 1871 Heiligerlee has been the home of the famous Saint Paulinus bell-foundry of the Van Bergen family of bell-founders. They have constructed carillons since 1930 both nationally and internationally. This is why, in 1942, a bell tower with a carillon was built in the foundry’s façade. The foundry ceased to exist in 1980 but since 1987 the restored complex houses a bell-foundry museum where the history of bell casting is demonstrated.”
– Carillon2008

The foundry was commissioned by Saint Martin's Episcopal Church in New York City to build a carillon to celebrate the restoration of the church after a fire in 1939. The bells were installed in 1949. [See NY Times story below]

Queen Juliana came to see and hear the bells in 1952, during her state visit to New York:

“Holland's Queen Juliana Visits Harlem” by Vieilles Annonces

Saint Paulinus Bell Foundry – Then and Now:

“Klokkengieterij Museum (c. 2005)”



“Saint Paulinus Foundry (1949)”  by Ben Merk




The Threatened Bells of St. Martin's
(excerpted New York Times, June 7, 1998)

“At St. Martin's Episcopal Church on 230 Malcolm X Boulevard [sic, 230 Lenox Ave], at West 122d Street, the tintinnabulation of the bells, bells, bells is unusual, joyful – and threatened.

“Unlike bells that are played by pulling on a long rope, St. Martin's are arranged in an elaborate series of wires and levers known as a carillon. Played on a special keyboard, a carillon is one of music's grandest, rarest and most challenging percussive instruments, producing harmonies that, of course, are impossible on a single large bell. ...

“That there is a carillon in Harlem at all is quite a feat. Unlike Riverside Church's carillon, which at 74 bells is the world's largest, St. Martin's 42-bell carillon was not a gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr. After the 1939 electrical fire left only the shell of the Romanesque Revival building, the 3,500-member congregation struggled to rebuild.

“A parishioner, Arnold Rosey, originally from the West Indies, where church bells are common, gave $100 to the pastor, Mr. Johnson [sic, Reverend John H. Johnson], specifically for a fund to buy a bell. Word spread and parishioners – working-class men and women like laborers, hospital attendants and maids, most of them also from the West Indies – contributed $2,000. Mr. Johnson and others decided on a carillon from the renowned Royal Bell Casting Foundry, in Heiligerlee in the Netherlands.

“In two years, the congregation raised the then extraordinary sum of $45,000, and the bells were installed in 1949. For many in the congregation, however, the real climax arrived when Queen Juliana of the Netherlands came to see the bells in 1952, thronged by more than 7,000 Harlem well-wishers. ...”

Dus dit is niet in de VS, maar in Groningen...