Category Archives: Silent Cinema

Fotoplayer, Silent Cinema

CH. 6: DAVE HARTMAN, MENTOR

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By Joe Rinaudo

Dave Hartman

CHAPTER 1  CHAPTER 2  CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4    CHAPTER 5

Chapter 6

The next several months working at Dave’s shop was my trial-by-fire learning experience on how to restore an American Fotoplayer. Dave’s knowledge of pneumatic (bellows) design and restoration was vast and it was hard to wrap my brain around this unique technology. I had so many questions on the basic mechanics of the Fotoplayer that the task of restoration was (in my mind) to say the least, daunting!

Every day (when I was not working at my job) was spent traveling the 11 miles to Dave’s house with a new restoration project for my Fotoplayer. Sometimes I would stay as late as 11:00 p.m. (as my passion to finish the project was very high). On several occasions Dave would invite me into his house for dinner or bring me a hamburger while I was working in his shop. Dave’s wife, Jennifer, was a great cook and made the best spaghetti and meatballs! After dinner Dave would show me how to restore the tracking devices (the things that made the piano roll line up evenly with the holes on the piano’s tracker bar). The tracker bar is the brass bar on the piano that has holes in it that must line up correctly with the holes in the paper piano roll.  We also restored the wind motors (which drive the piano roll over the tracker bar). In a Fotoplayer there are two trackers and two wind motors as a Fotoplayer has to have one for the top and bottom tracker bars. Several more weeks were spent restoring all of the related pneumatics that regulated the speed and volume of the piano as well as the expression pneumatics and control linkage which gave the operator full control of the piano’s performance.Fotoplayer stack

This shows the double roll playing mechanism, used on all American Fotoplayers. The tracker bars are the horizontal brass items in the center. All the pneumatics were rebuilt at Dave’s shop. Wine-colored motorcloth was used to restore the bellows.
But electric blue pullcords? Read on…

During a recent show I had pulled on the original leather cord and it snapped, somersaulting me back over the seat and onto the floor. Then it happened again with another cord (this time there were no acrobatics). Replacement leather pullcords were not to be found, so I asked around what material to use so the cords wouldn’t break, and the solution was mountain-climbing rope, and the only color available was vibrant blue. (I could pull with a force of 2500 pounds and it would not snap.) That remained on the Fotoplayer until I finally found the same rope in black, which has been crashing symbols and activating other sound effects to this day. Leather cord (strong enough for the purpose, anyway) simply doesn’t exist anymore.

Working at Dave’s shop was usually an interesting experience. His work bench, which sat in the middle of his shop, was always piled high with so many projects and tools that it was almost impossible to find any place (on it) to work. When I would arrive with my next project and ask Dave “Where might I work?”  he would always say (with a sly smile), “On the bench of course.” This meant my time would be spent excavating a small clearing in the mountain so I would have a small cavity to work in. This also meant that I would have to ask Dave where this tool, wood, cloth or glue bottle should go. Pretty soon I knew where items should live and would automatically perform this daily duty. Of course, when I would return the next day, my clearing would be gone! Like the shifting sands of the Sahara my work space would be only a memory.  Sometimes I think that Dave liked having me at his shop for two reasons. Reason one: to make a “clearing” for him to work in when I was not there. Reason two: To put his tools away!Dave's Workbench

This is Dave’s workbench today. Nothing’s changed in over 45 years, except it was piled even higher back then.

I remember that one day while I was working in the shop with Dave, the phone rang. I watched as Dave answered the call and listened for a short time then put the phone receiver down on a table and went back to work. After a few minutes he would go back to the phone pick it up off the table listen for a while and say “uh- ha” and put the receiver back on the table. I could hear someone talking very loudly on the phone while Dave was elsewhere in the shop working on something. After a few more minutes Dave would pick up the receiver and listen for a while then say “uh- ha, uh- ha, oh!” then put the receiver back down and make a pot of coffee (Dave always had a pot of coffee brewing in his shop).   This process with the receiver would be repeated a few more times. Then Dave would pick up the receiver and say, ”I gotta go! The shops on fire!” With that he would say a few more uh-ha’s and hang up the phone!  I said, “What in the hell was that all about?”  Dave told me that it was a customer who could talk nonstop forever and a day without taking a breath! Dave told me that the caller was a good customer and Dave didn’t want to insult him by trying to get off the phone too quickly. I asked Dave how did he know how long to make the intervals before he came back to listen? Dave said that this guy always asks the same question three times in three slightly different ways. “So, I listen in every 4 minutes or so to get the idea of how much longer the ordeal will last.” I then asked, “Have you ever been caught by not getting back quickly enough?” Dave said no, that he always positioned the work that he would do (while he was away) near enough to hear if the talking ever stopped. If it ever did, he said that he would rush back and wing it!

Dave and Jennifer had a little Pekinese dog named Tinker. Of course, Dave called her Stinker, my peek-and-sneeze! Sometimes in the wintertime, when I would be working late in the shop, Tinker would come in silently and lay on my feet. She kept my feet warm. I guess Tinker thought my feet seemed better than her dog house. This was mutually beneficial for both of us.

One time while I was working in Dave’s shop alone while he ran an errand. An older man walks into the shop, and without saying a word begins wiping saw dust off the table saw and then starts quietly sweeping the entire shop! Since the man never introduced himself, I thought it would be only fitting to inquire as to the purpose of his efforts. The man said that his name was Jim Sloan. Jim was Dave’s neighbor who was retired from the movie industry. So, when he was bored he would come over to the shop to clean and organize. Jim said that he knew that he always had a job at Dave’s shop. Jim said that the general confusion of this place guarantees him a lifetime of work! Jim had a funny accent. I asked him where he was from. Jim said that he was born in Minnesota. He said that his father had a general store and Jim always had chores to do like stocking shelves or chopping several cords of wood during winter for the store’s potbellied stove which was located in the middle of the store. He said that he had this work ethic which kept him always wanting to do something with his time.

I asked Jim what part of the movie industry he was in. He said that he was an assistant cameraman at M.G.M. Studios. I asked how did he get his start. Jim said that in the 1930’s he was the register boy at the sign in shack at the M.G.M. studio main gate. I said “You must have some interesting stories about your work.” Jim said that he got to meet some very famous actors at the sign in shack. I said that I love Laurel & Hardy and that I knew that the Hal Roach studios (which was next door to M.G.M.) used some of the sound stages at M.G.M. to film some of the Laurel & Hardy films. Jim said that one day he was at his sign-in station and here comes Laurel & Hardy in full costume! He said that they were in line with everybody else and when it came to their time to sign-in they caused quite a funny commotion. First Ollie comes up to the register, takes off his hat, twiddles his tie and smiles at the young Jim. With the other hand he takes the pen and with a great swirling of it in the air begins to sign with great flourish while Stan is dumbly looking on! Now everybody in the shack is laughing! When it is Stan’s time to sign, Stan looks puzzled at the prospect and begins to grab the log-in register and stares intently at it. Ollie slaps him on the shoulder and motions Stan to remove his hat. More laughing from the crowd. Stan removes his hat and begins a struggle with his body to get into just the right position to sign. The gyrations and contortions keep up so Stan can obtain just the right position to make what seems will be the signature of the century! With that he turns to a new page and drops a huge ink blot on it from the fountain pen. Rips out the damaged page placing it in his pocket and looks around sheepishly (hoping that no one is looking). Then proceeds to make a giant “X” on the new page. By this time Jim and everyone was laughing so hard that Laurel and & Hardy knew it was now time to make their exit. So, they tip their hats and slowly back out the exit door and then run away! Jim said “They were funny bastards! The funniest bastards that I had ever known!”  

By this time Dave had returned and the mood was what did get done in his absence? I was beginning to learn that being at Dave’s shop is teaching me more than just how to restore a Fotoplayer.

To be continued…

Press to leave a comment.

Do You Have
— EXPERTISE in NON-PROFITS? —

Joe Rinaudo, founder of Silent Cinema Society, is currently forming a non-profit which he calls SCAT —Silent Cinema Art and Technology — to fund the restoration and preservation of the actual machines and media of the silent era.

Advice and suggestions in the area of non-profits are most welcome. Contact Joe Rinaudo here.

Through Silent Cinema Society, which is comprised of you, the fans and supporters of silent cinema, Joe will continue to enlighten and entertain with The Newsreel newsletter; this Silent Cinema Society website; and hopefully soon, live shows where audiences are once again able to wear big hats that block the screen. SCAT, the non-profit, will also support Silent Cinema Society so that information and entertainment will continue to be presented to you, silent cinema fans. Lady, will you please take off that big hat!

Fotoplayer, Silent Cinema

CH. 5: DAVE HARTMAN, MENTOR

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Dear Reader:

My best friend and mentor Dave Hartman continues to feel much better, according to his wife Joanie. She attributes it to these stories, and I am truly humbled. Not only does he enjoy reliving our adventures, she says, but he is most delighted to share them with his daughters, who are fascinated to learn about their father’s mechanical ingenuity and how appreciated he has been by his colleagues and friends.

I am overjoyed that in my attempt to simply honor my best friend of forty-eight years. It has restored Dave’s spirit for life, and passion for tinkering. Joanie says it’s even put a bounce in his step.

It has been cathartic for me as well. I have learned many wonderful things from Dave over the years, and now he’s taught me something new, something profound: the importance of sharing memories with an old friend. It’s healing and heartwarming for everyone.

I deeply appreciate your coming along for the ride, *|FNAME|*. Here’s the next chapter about my best friend and mentor, Dave Hartman…

By Joe Rinaudo

Dave Hartman

CHAPTER 1  CHAPTER 2  CHAPTER 3  CHAPTER 4

Chapter 5

So, I removed the valve chest from my Fotoplayer and put it in my Model A. On the drive over to Dave’s house, I wondered just what we might find as the cause of the poorly performing valve chest. When I arrived at Dave’s he told me to bring the car around back to the “shop.” There I discovered a large garage crammed with a lifetime of projects.  What a wonderful and magical place!

I brought the valve chest inside and placed it on the bench. Dave said that I must disassemble it for inspection. I removed the top half containing the valves and exposed the pouches. The pouches are little air-tight discs of very thin leather that inflate (when a note is played on the piano) that push up on the valve, sending vacuum to a small pneumatic (bellows) that collapses it (when vacuum enters) and pushes down on a push rod which opens another valve that lets wind into the pipe which makes the pipe “speak.” This is how the piano roll plays the organ. It is all a very convoluted contraption! Dave noticed that the rubber valves were red, like silicone, and not black rubber like all other American Fotoplayers. I was quite proud of these silicone valves as they were my secret weapon to make my valve chest play better than ever. Dave asked where I got these made.

Joe's first piano restoration

Here I am in 1970 with the first player piano I had rebuilt for a “customer.” The $300 profit helped me purchase my Fotoplayer, and the accomplishment gave me the confidence to try and restore it. Little did I know that a few years later Dave Hartman would show me the right way!

I told him that a friend of mine, Mr. Frank Cermack, had found a style 40 American Fotoplayer in the Optic theater in downtown Los Angeles. We had become Fotoplayer friends. He had given me just enough information about “restoration” to make me dangerous! Frank worked in the Skunkworks at Lockheed Aircraft as a tool and die maker. (The skunkworks was a top-secret department where things were built for the military.) Frank would never speak of what went on over there. Well, Frank had made molds and a set of valves for his Fotoplayer out of some very expensive military grade silicone. He did this on his lunch hour with extra steel for the molds and left-over silicone. (At least that is what he told me.) I was quite proud to have a set of these valves in my valve chest! Thinking all that was necessary for a great working valve chest were these government-sponsored valves.

Dave took one look at the pouches and said “This is all crap! Rip out the pouches and seal the wood!” I was horrified to hear such a diagnosis! Fotoplayer had pressed little trim rings around each pouch. I had very carefully removed these rings in an attempt to seal the pouches, and very carefully replaced them. Dave said “That’s unnecessary crap! Throw those worthless rings out!” I was very sad to see all of my hard work go into the trash can! Dave explained that the leather from the 1920’s had shrunk and was leaking, which causes the valves to also leak. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and me. Another big problem was the wood that the chest was made from, was seeping vacuum through to the next valve, and all of those air channels must be cleaned and sealed before replacing the pouches. I realized that the “Doctor” had spoken and was not sure what might happen next. Dave very patiently walked me through the steps for the proper restoration of the poor old valve chest.

After a few days my worst fears were allayed. The valve chest was working perfectly! Skunkworks valves and all.

The next thing was the pipe wind chest with all of the little pneumatics that make the organ play. I had tried to seal them and clean the little pushrods and pipe valves with talcum powder. Dave said “You’re really good at putting lipstick on a pig!” Dave showed me how to recover the pneumatics and rebuild the organ valves (which were made of felt and leather). He showed me how to seal the cracks in the wood to make the wind chest tight.

Joe with his Model A

Joe’s 1929 Model A Ford

All of this took several weeks and trips to his shop with my Model A. On one such occasion I was driving the Model A to Dave’s shop with another of the Fotoplayer projects when one of the most embarrassing moments of my life was just in the road ahead. I was tooling down at a pretty fast clip for a Model A (about 40 miles per hour!) when I entered a very large intersection which had some kind of a very sharp bump in the pavement. When my front wheels hit the event horizon of this Marianas Trench, I felt my front end come up off the ground with a resounding bouncing crash as I arrived back on earth. The car jumped up again as if I had run over something. As the car bounced back to the road, I heard an awful loud chugging sound as if I had no muffler! In my rear view mirror I saw that my muffler was skidding into the middle of the intersection. This now had stopped all traffic! So I pull over, out of the intersection, turned off the chugging beast and quickly opened the rumble seat to accept the muffler. As I ran back into the middle of the intersection (with car horns honking) my only thought was to get my muffler out of the way so as not to cause an accident and further damage to my muffler. As I grabbed the muffler, I suddenly realized that this was not the thing to do as it was red hot! I then screamed and threw the muffler straight up in the air. I began shaking my burned hands wildly and managed to just barely dodge the falling muffler! Now I can hear people in two of the nearby gas stations laughing and knew I had fingers pointing at me. Amid the honking horns and laughter, I hastily kicked the muffler back to my car, grabbed a rag and threw the offending muffler into the rumble seat. With that I took off with a thunderous roar!

When I finally arrived at Dave’s shop, He just looked at me with a muffler sticking out of my rumble seat and a car that sounded like a Harley on steroids, and said “What have you done now? I heard you several blocks away!” When I told him of my harrowing adventure, Dave said he was sorry that he had missed that. I then wondered how I was going to get home as part of my exhaust manifold had broken off and was still clamped on to the muffler! A friend had welded the manifold for me and he assured me that it would not break. Dave said “Your friend needs to go back to welding school.” What happened next was one of the magical things about Dave’s shop, which seemed to have anything you needed. In no time at all Dave had found a Model A exhaust manifold and the gasket set for it. This exhaust manifold was warped and that’s why he wasn’t going to use it on his Model A. Dave said “It’s always good to have spare parts for your old car.” Dave finds a big chunk of steel under one of his benches. He said, “We will have to surface sand this manifold so it is flat again.”  We put the heavy chunk of steel on a bench and taped sandpaper to it. Dave held one end of the manifold and I was on the other. We slowly slid the manifold back and forth (which seemed like an eternity). Soon we had the old manifold as flat as can be! We bolted it all up and got the old girl running! 

I thought that I would someday love to have a shop like Dave has. Little did I know that I had a lot more to learn at Dave’s shop.

To be continued…

Press to leave a comment.

Do You Have
— EXPERTISE in NON-PROFITS? —

Joe Rinaudo, founder of Silent Cinema Society, is currently forming a non-profit which he calls SCAT —Silent Cinema Art and Technology — to fund the restoration and preservation of the actual machines and media of the silent era.

Advice and suggestions in the area of non-profits are most welcome. Contact Joe Rinaudo here.

Through Silent Cinema Society, which is comprised of you, the fans and supporters of silent cinema, Joe will continue to enlighten and entertain with The Newsreel newsletter; this Silent Cinema Society website; and hopefully soon, live shows where audiences are once again able to wear big hats that block the screen. SCAT, the non-profit, will also support Silent Cinema Society so that information and entertainment will continue to be presented to you, silent cinema fans. Lady, will you please take off that big hat!

Fotoplayer, Silent Cinema

American Photo Player Co., Berkeley, Calif.

2 Comments

Dear Reader, it’s time for

= I N T E R M I S S I O N =

My story about Dave Hartman and the Fotoplayer will continue in a week or two. In the meantime, here is a delightful article about the original American Photo Player Co. in Berkeley, California. (They manufactured the American Fotoplayer that Dave helped me restore, which is now the centerpiece of my living room. More interesting than just a coffee table.)

Daniella Thompson, author of the following article, is editor at Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (berkeleyheritage.com). She has photographed many historical landmarks in Berkeley, featured on the BAHA website.

Ms. Thompson’s article was published in the Berkeley Daily Planet on March 11, 2010. She graciously gave us permission to repost her original article here with photos, which you can also read on the BAHA website.

BREAD AND MUSIC WERE STAPLES OF WEST BERKELEY BLOCK

by Daniella Thompson

American Photo Player Co. buildings, Strawberry Creek Park (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2010)

Berkeley prides itself on being at the forefront of national trends. This was already the case a hundred years ago, when newfangled inventions like the automobile and the movies found receptive local entrepreneurs ready to help them along.

Movies being silent in those days, they required musical accompaniment to help convey emotions. “Comparatively few houses can pay for large orchestras composed of highly paid musicians. Mechanical substitutes are indispensable,” wrote Harvey Brougham in the Overland Monthly in August 1920, continuing:

Modifications of the great and costly organs that require a large theatre to house them, and an artist of first-class ability to operate them, are beyond the reach of large numbers of picture places. But American ingenuity has been equal to that emergency. Mechanical instruments that synchronize the expression of the music with the different degrees of action on the screen have been developed with such efficiency that the picture exhibitor is poor indeed who cannot furnish his patrons with a good substitute for a satisfactory orchestra. It is gratifying to mention that in this line of enterprise California is leading, just as our favored State is ahead in the production of screen attractions. The American Photo Player Company of San Francisco, New York and Chicago has made a wonderful business and artistic success in the manufacture and installation of musical merchandise, suitable to the motion picture industry.

 

Ad reproduced in “Silent Film Sound” by Rick Altman

Although it maintained offices and showrooms in San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, the American Photo Player Company’s manufacturing facility was located in Berkeley, on the southeast corner of Addison and Bonar streets.

Overland Monthly, August 1920

In his book Memoirs of a San Francisco Organ Builder (1977), Louis J. Schoenstein described the company’s product, trademarked the Fotoplayer:

About this time [1912] we began hearing of the American Photo Player Company and their factory in Berkeley, California, conducted by the Van Valkenburg Brothers, specializing in the so-called Pit Organ. These organs were placed in the orchestra pit and consisted of a piano in the center and two sections of the organ on either side. Two automatic player mechanisms were provided in the piano to give continuous music. Some of these pit organs also had harmonium reeds, and for the purpose of tuning these, my father and I made frequent visits to the factory in West Berkeley. These Photo Player organs were also equipped with every imaginable percussion device (or so-called traps), bass drums, snare drums, bells, gongs, whistles, castanets, etc. A series of pull knobs controlling these devices hung within easy reach of the performer. Further, there were the knee swells affecting both organ chambers. I recall hearing and seeing Hal Van Valkenburg give a demonstration on one of the organs at the factory. Being the builder of the organ he may have been exceptionally expert at manipulating it, but I do not recall hearing anyone since who could match him in agility, or in following the music roll and interpreting the music so perfectly.

Joe Rinaudo plays his Fotoplayer, manufactured in 1926 at the Van Nuys plant.

The American Photo Player Company established its factory in 1912, locating it next to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad tracks, which ran on a north-south line through the eastern half of the same block. The factory was located in a former flour warehouse, built in 1906 by the Sperry Flour Company. A building permit was taken out on 23 October 1912 to construct a second building to the north, with a warehouse below and office above, at a cost of $3,872. This wood-sided building still stands at 2101 Bonar Street. The designer was F.M. Madsen; the builder, Christ Texdahl of Harper Street.

Sperry Flour Co. wasn’t the first occupant of this block, known in the assessor’s books as Block A of the Bryant Tract. As early as 1893, there were at least two residences at the southwestern end of this block. One of them, at 2141 Bonar Street, was owned and most likely built as a speculative venture by A.H. Broad, Berkeley’s popular contractor, public official, and amateur painter. The second, at 2125 Bonar, was the home of John T. Lamb, an Iowan whose working life included stints as shepherd, hotel keeper in a mining town, mine engineer, and gold amalgamator. On Bonar Street, he was listed first as laborer, then as attorney. Lamb and his wife, Annie, decamped for Madera County in 1899 but continued to own their house and three lots on Bonar Street.

The Sperry Flour Company’s warehouse was built in 1906 and burned in December 1912. The Lamb house is shown at bottom left. (Sanborn fire insurance map, 1911)

By 1894, A.H. Broad had built a second house on the block, this one at 1257 Allston Way. It was occupied and eventually acquired by a working-class couple who frequently changed jobs in their efforts to bring home the bacon. Gustav Sonntag worked as longshoreman, dairyman, driver, janitor at the University of California, seaman, and expressman. His wife, Eline, tried her hand at running a grocery and working as a knitter at the J.J. Pfister Knitting Co. on Eighth and Parker.

For a dozen years, the Lamb house and the two Broad-built houses were the only taxable properties on the block. It was the San Francisco earthquake and fire that finally spurred further development. About the same time that the Sperry flour warehouse was going up, Elijah J. Berryman built his hay and grain warehouse a few lots to the south. This warehouse was located directly on top of Strawberry Creek. With the help of a partner, Berryman acquired the Lambs’ triple lot that adjoined his property and settled into the former Lamb home. With another partner, he built a coal shed next to the railroad’s spur track and established a fuel business.

At the southern end of the block were the Fisher Brothers’ Vienna Bakery, their flats, and the Sonntag property. (Sanborn fire insurance map, 1911)

A year later, a baker by the name of Christopher C. Fisher purchased five lots on the northeast corner of Bonar and Allston Way. He built a bakery, soon to be known as Fisher’s Vienna Bakery, and a pair of flats at 1251–1253 Allston Way, where he and his younger brother, Fred, settled down.

By the time the American Photo Player Company took possession of the old Sperry warehouse in late 1912, Block A of the Bryant Tract was almost fully built. The Journal of a City’s Progress, published by the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, reported that the factory was giving employment to 100 men and women.

American Photo Player and its product, the Fotoplayer, were the brainchild of Harold A. Van Valkenburg and his younger brother, Burt. Born in Minnesota, the two had migrated to Seattle with their parents before coming to Oakland. Harold set up as an independent electrical mechanic, and his inventions paved the way to the Fotoplayer. His and Burt’s patents included a piano-playing mechanism; pneumatically operated pianos and orchestrions; a sound-producing device; an automatic record rewind and play mechanism; a damping device for snare drums; and a note-accenting device, among others.

Drawing for one of Hal Van Valkenburg’s patents

In early December 1912, a pile of sawdust in the rear of the factory combusted, leading to the destruction of the old Sperry building and a loss estimated at $60,000. The Oakland Tribune reported on 9 December that the factory, established only a short time earlier, was largely insured. “Owing to shortage of water and the distance of the nearest fire company, the saving of the structures was found impossible,” informed the newspaper. “Organ pipes and reeds comprised the chief portion of the stock that was destroyed. The freight cars burned contained new stock just arrived. The plant employed 180 men.”

On 15 December, the Tribune followed up:

B. R. Van Valkenburg announced this week that the American Photoplayer company, of which he is manager, intends reconstruction at once of its plant at Addison and Bonar streets which was destroyed a week ago by fire. The new building will cost about $25,000 and will occupy the site. It is expected the factory will be ready for occupation in 90 days. It will be of brick, three stories in height and occupy a ground space of 85 by 100 feet.

American Photo Player Co. buildings on Bonar Street. The wooden building was constructed in 1912, the brick building in 1913. (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2010)

The building permit issued on 31 January 1913 specified a one- and two-story brick factory with a basement, to be constructed on the east side of Bonar Street, 100 feet south of Addison, at a cost of $17,300. The architect this time was 24-year-old Walter W. Crapo of San Francisco, collaborating with Coates and Traver, who the previous year had taken second prize in the design competition for San Francisco City Hall. The contractor was Benjamin Pearson of Berkeley.

The one-story wing of the American Photo Player Co. complex faces Strawberry Creek Park. (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2010)
The pipe factory at 2117 Bonar St. was built in 1916. (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2010)

During the 1910s, American Photo Player Co. was a leader in its field. In 1917, under the leadership of chief executive Harold J. Werner, the company entered the pipe organ business through its newly acquired subsidiary, the Robert Morton Organ Company, with a factory in Van Nuys. Harvey Brougham’s article in the Overland Monthly touted it:

For houses of larger resources, the Robert-Morton symphonic organ has been evolved. Played by one performer, this organ rivals a symphonic orchestra. Its emotional range is only limited by the musical sympathies of the performer at the console. This instrument, without any adjustment, may be played by an organist as an organ, producing both orchestral and cathedral effects, as desired. Moreover, it can be played with music rolls, or be utilized to augment the musical effect of an orchestra of four or five instrumental soloists, and reach impressive symphonic proportions.

Despite its commercial success, the company ran into financial trouble through excessive indebtedness. In September 1923, American Photo Player and its Robert Morton subsidiary were taken over in the interest of creditors, and a new company, Photoplayer Co., formed to operate the manufacturing plants. Stockholders of American Photo Player Co. sued in April 1924 for liabilities of over $530,000, of which $110,000 was demanded of Harold J. Werner.

Presto, 3 May 1924

Under the new management, the Berkeley plant was closed down. The Robert Morton Co. continued in Van Nuys. It was the second largest producer of theater organs in America until the talkies and the Great Depression put an end to its business in the early 1930s.

The Berkeley factory buildings had been owned from the start by Thomas W. Corder, wholesale wool merchant of Oakland. In 1926, he leased the brick building at 2109 Bonar Street to the Northwest Chair Company of Tacoma, Washington. It was used as its California distributing warehouse. The company supplied “bedroom, children’s, dining room, kitchen, library and store chairs made of ash, birch, mahogany, oak and Walnut,” according to an Oakland Tribune article dated 21 March 1926.

The complex in 1929 (Sanborn fire insurance map)

The tenant at 2101 Bonar Street was the Oliver Organ Company, which in 1927 built the organ for the Chapel of the Chimes, then being constructed to a design by Julia Morgan. But Oliver Organ also fell victim to the Depression. Beginning in 1931, its owner, Oliver Lowe, became a building contractor.

Based in Los Angeles during the 1920s, and also affected by the talkie revolution, Harold Van Valkenburg turned his attention to other inventions. His Van Nuys–based Van Valkenburg Laboratory manufactured “Sylvatone door chimes and vacuum trumpets, Choo-Choo and Cuckoo Auto Horns, novelty tuned bells, Chicken water heaters, Model A Ford timing gear oiler and silencer, and stoplight switches.” On 25 December 1932, the Oakland Tribune announced that the Van Valkenburg Laboratory had recently moved to 1,000-square-foot plant at 4147 Broadway in Oakland and was employing two workers. Harold Van Valkenburg died on 28 August 1935.

The future use of the organ factory was eventually determined by Charles F. Cooper, who moved his cabinet-making business into part of it about 1939. Gradually, Cooper expanded into the entire space and bought it outright in the mid-1940s. Cooper Woodworking still owned the complex in 1986, when it was designated a City of Berkeley Landmark. In 1987, Huck Rorick and Phil Lovett renovated the complex and adapted it for reuse as the Strawberry Creek Design Center.

Continental Baking took over the entire southern part of the block. (Sanborn fire insurance map, 1929)

The southern part of the block changed more dramatically. In 1924, the Fisher brothers sold their bakery business to a national concern, Ward Baking Company, which within a year was renamed Continental Baking. Ward constructed a large plant on the former Fisher and Sonntag properties. While the fate of the Fisher flats is not known, the two Sonntag houses at 1255 and 1257 Allston Way were moved to 2223 and 2219 Acton Street, respectively.

In 1929, a fire insurance map still showed the fuel and feed yard to the north of the bakery, but by 1950, the makers of Wonder Bread had swallowed up those parcels as well. The former bakery building at 1255 Allston Way is now the home of Berkeley Youth Alternatives.

Oakland Tribune, 6 Feb. 1925

Reposted courtesy of Daniella Thompson. Copyright © 2010–2022 Daniella Thompson. All rights reserved.

You can read Ms. Thompson’s original post on the BAHA website here.

The story of my mentor and best friend, Dave Hartman, will be continued in the next post.

Do You Have
— EXPERTISE in NON-PROFITS? —

Joe Rinaudo, founder of Silent Cinema Society, is currently forming a non-profit which he calls SCAT —Silent Cinema Art and Technology — to fund the restoration and preservation of the actual machines and media of the silent era.

Advice and suggestions in the area of non-profits are most welcome. Contact Joe Rinaudo here.

Through Silent Cinema Society, which is comprised of you, the fans and supporters of silent cinema, Joe will continue to enlighten and entertain with The Newsreel newsletter; this Silent Cinema Society website; and hopefully soon, live shows where audiences are once again able to wear big hats that block the screen. SCAT, the non-profit, will also support Silent Cinema Society so that information and entertainment will continue to be presented to you, silent cinema fans. Lady, will you please take off that big hat!