This post has been hanging out in my Drafts folder for months. This summer, Liam and I met up with my aunt and uncle for a fabulous tour. The Scottish Rite Cathedral is in New Castle, PA. My grandfather on my mother's side was a Mason, so our family enjoyed events at this incredible site over many years. In fact, the ballroom below is where we held our wedding reception.
In the above photo, it's set up for bingo, but you can imagine it with a catering table, a cake table, many other tables for guests, a head table along the left wall, soft twinkly lights and so forth.
I have always loved the chandeliers!
This is the foyer upstairs, off the street out front. Those of you who attending our wedding will remember seeing the snow sheeting down outside all those windows on your right. Folding chairs were set up on both sides of a long center aisle, down which I giddily exclaimed, "so and so is here! And so and so made it! And I see so and so!"
We got married during a blizzard in January of 1999. The turnpike closed. Our wedding cake didn't make it. Some of our family made it. Some guests wiped out in the parking lot and brought slushy cards that they then apologized for. Tons of people made it, (you're all a bunch of nuts, by the way), and it blew us away. Talk about feeling loved!
Anyway, back to the Cathedral. Here is a shot of the Hobart dishwasher, perhaps where my love affair with large dishwashers began, haha!
The coatroom upstairs off the foyer.
The glorious auditorium with two balconies, retractable pipe organ, and color-changing chandeliers. I was privileged to see both "South Pacific" and "My Fair Lady" live on that stage.
Above photo is looking down into the foyer.
The organ also boasts a player organ that is being restored, like a player piano. I didn't even know there was such a thing. Liam and I joined my aunt and uncle on a tour of this amazing building and of all the aspects I thought would impress him, the organ hadn't even crossed my mind. One, he was blown away that it could be raised to stage level or retracted underneath it. Two, when the gentleman in the photo above who is doing some of the restoration process began to play it, Liam was absolutely floored. I don't know that he's ever been in a space that large with acoustics that vibrant. I don't even know what to compare it to. Schedule yourself a tour and ask for someone to be there to play the organ! Or better yet, this Saturday, December 10th at 7 pm, famous organist Dave Wickerham will be playing along to a Laurel and Hardy holiday movie on the huge screen, followed by a holiday singalong. Click for details: here
Not a bad seat in the house! Check it out!
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