Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Astoria Cinema Organ, circa 1960
Charles Smitton and the Compton Cinema Organ at the Odeon Astoria, Finsbury Park.
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Comment by John Leeming on January 20, 2017 at 9:51
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Interesting to see this photograph. Charles Smitton was Manchester-based, much associated with the Odeon there in Oxford Road. He made a number of fine broadcasts on the Odeon's splendid Wurlitzer organ in the 1940s-60s. Sadly, his playing career was ended by a severe stroke in the early 1970s. By contrast, the Finsbury Park organ was a disappointment - the installation was such that the sound did not get out into the auditorium. The organ was removed from the Astoria in 1970 and was used as the basis of a much larger instrument installed in the new Aylesbury Civic Hall. That hall itself has now gone, and the organ was split up, various pipes and parts appearing in different instruments all over the country.
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