A storied Park Avenue church has filed a $1 million suit against Con Edison, charging the power company ruined its famed giant organ.
The suit says St. Bartholomew’s Church “owns and operates an Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ consisting of 12,422 pipes. “The pipe organ is the largest organ in the city, the second largest pipe organ in the state and the fifth largest pipe organ in the Western Hemisphere” – and it hasn’t worked right since June 30, 2004.
That’s when the church at 50th Street says its representatives “noted an extensive, extraordinary amount of steam escaping from openings in the street and sidewalk areas adjacent to the church,” and, knowing the utility’s steam line branches off into the church’s basement, called Con Ed for help, the suit says.
Con Ed didn’t respond to the complaints, and soon after, church reps “and its organ curator began to experience and observe problems and malfunctions in the pipe organ.”
“Upon further investigation, it was determined” the organ failure was being caused by “moist, humid and damp air which was being drawn into” the pipe system from the basement, the suit says.
Con Ed fixed the problem in August 2004, but the church says in the two months in between it “sustained damages to its property necessitating repairs, service, replacement, labor and expenses” of more than $1 million.
Con Ed spokesman Chris Olert declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.