Famed Wanamaker Organ will again be heard by the public in fall art series in Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — One of the most famous organs in the world, which graces one of Philadelphia's favorite public spaces, was at risk of going quiet this spring when Macy’s closed up shop in the city's storied Wanamaker Building.

But countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, the avant-garde opera star hired last year to run Opera Philadelphia, is leading an effort to let the public again enjoy the Wanamaker Organ, a National Historic Landmark-designated treasure. The organ boasts more than 28,000 wood and metal pipes hidden behind a soaring wall of gold-leaf pipes that frame the building’s seven-story marble atrium.

Costanzo, with $1 million in philanthropic funding, is organizing a series of public performances this fall — including opera, ballet, theater and drag — before renovations begin next year on the building’s conversion to a retail and residential hub. The Wanamaker Organ will be featured in the first event, set for Sunday, Sept. 7, but perhaps not all of them.

“John Wanamaker, when he built this Grand Court, said he wanted it to be the intersection of arts and commerce, and that’s why he put the world’s largest pipe organ into it,” Costanzo told The Associated Press in an onsite interview Thursday evening.

“This space is operatic,” he said. “So I thought it was a perfect umbrella to bring in every arts organization I could, and all these different collaborators.”

The organ was made for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Wanamaker, a successful merchant and civic leader, had it moved to his new emporium next to City Hall in 1909 and then hired a crew of 40 pipe makers to enlarge it so the sound filled the vast space. A decade later, famed conductor Leopold Anthony Stokowski performed there with the Philadelphia Orchestra as 15,000 people crowded into the great hall and mezzanines.

With the merchandise now gone, the acoustics rival those of the great cathedrals, Costanzo said.

“The organ for the first time is in perfect cathedral acoustic condition, so it will be the best way to hear this instrument in the history of the space, because there’s actually nothing in there,” he said.

The building's new owner hopes to continue to incorporate art and culture into their plans, which include retail on the lower floors and office and residential space above. The organ adds opportunity, but also unique challenges.

“You’ve got this organ music going in the grand atrium, but meanwhile you’ve got other uses on these upper floors looking into that space, so you have to figure out how to make that work for everybody,” said Jon McMillan, a senior vice president of TF Cornerstone, the New York-based development firm.

Local civic groups, in an announcement Friday, said they hope to raise funds to bring back one of the city’s most beloved annual events, a holiday light show that drew generations of families to the store.

Costanzo, who continues to perform around the world, believes he can build enthusiasm for the arts by bringing it to the places where people gather, including the Wanamaker Building. And he hopes that, in turn, will help people find a way to connect with each other.

“This space is so deeply embedded in the emotion of Philadelphia,” Costanzo said. “I want them to come to Wanamaker and discover something they've never seen before.”

The console of the Wanamaker organ is seen before performance at the storied Wanamaker Building, July 24, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Anthony Roth Costanzo, right, of Opera Philadelphia, and Peter Richard Conte, Wanamaker grand court organist, perform at the storied Wanamaker Building, July 24, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Peter Richard Conte, Wanamaker grand court organist, performs at the storied Wanamaker Building, July 24, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Peter Richard Conte, Wanamaker grand court organist, performs at the storied Wanamaker Building, July 24, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Electronic modules light up during a performance at the storied Wanamaker Building, July 24, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

A door knob to the interior of the Wanamaker organ is seen during a performance at the storied Wanamaker Building, July 24, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Anthony Roth Costanzo, right, of Opera Philadelphia, and Peter Richard Conte, Wanamaker grand court organist, embrace before a performance at the storied Wanamaker Building, July 24, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Anthony Roth Costanzo, of Opera Philadelphia, preforms at the storied Wanamaker Building, July 24, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Anthony Roth Costanzo, of Opera Philadelphia, performs at the storied Wanamaker Building, July 24, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Anthony Roth Costanzo, of Opera Philadelphia, right, performs with Peter Richard Conte, Wanamaker grand court organist, at the storied Wanamaker Building, July 24, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump would not be the first president to invoke the Insurrection Act, as he has threatened, so that he can send U.S. military forces to Minnesota.

But he'd be the only commander in chief to use the 19th-century law to send troops to quell protests that started because of federal officers the president already has sent to the area — one of whom shot and killed a U.S. citizen.

The law, which allows presidents to use the military domestically, has been invoked on more than two dozen occasions — but rarely since the 20th Century's Civil Rights Movement.

Federal forces typically are called to quell widespread violence that has broken out on the local level — before Washington's involvement and when local authorities ask for help. When presidents acted without local requests, it was usually to enforce the rights of individuals who were being threatened or not protected by state and local governments. A third scenario is an outright insurrection — like the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Experts in constitutional and military law say none of that clearly applies in Minneapolis.

“This would be a flagrant abuse of the Insurrection Act in a way that we've never seen,” said Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program. “None of the criteria have been met.”

William Banks, a Syracuse University professor emeritus who has written extensively on the domestic use of the military, said the situation is “a historical outlier” because the violence Trump wants to end “is being created by the federal civilian officers” he sent there.

But he also cautioned Minnesota officials would have “a tough argument to win” in court, because the judiciary is hesitant to challenge “because the courts are typically going to defer to the president” on his military decisions.

Here is a look at the law, how it's been used and comparisons to Minneapolis.

George Washington signed the first version in 1792, authorizing him to mobilize state militias — National Guard forerunners — when “laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed.”

He and John Adams used it to quash citizen uprisings against taxes, including liquor levies and property taxes that were deemed essential to the young republic's survival.

Congress expanded the law in 1807, restating presidential authority to counter “insurrection or obstruction” of laws. Nunn said the early statutes recognized a fundamental “Anglo-American tradition against military intervention in civilian affairs” except “as a tool of last resort.”

The president argues Minnesota officials and citizens are impeding U.S. law by protesting his agenda and the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Customs and Border Protection officers. Yet early statutes also defined circumstances for the law as unrest “too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course” of law enforcement.

There are between 2,000 and 3,000 federal authorities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, compared to Minneapolis, which has fewer than 600 police officers. Protesters' and bystanders' video, meanwhile, has shown violence initiated by federal officers, with the interactions growing more frequent since Renee Good was shot three times and killed.

“ICE has the legal authority to enforce federal immigration laws,” Nunn said. “But what they're doing is a sort of lawless, violent behavior” that goes beyond their legal function and “foments the situation” Trump wants to suppress.

“They can't intentionally create a crisis, then turn around to do a crackdown,” he said, adding that the Constitutional requirement for a president to “faithfully execute the laws” means Trump must wield his power, on immigration and the Insurrection Act, “in good faith.”

Courts have blocked some of Trump's efforts to deploy the National Guard, but he'd argue with the Insurrection Act that he does not need a state's permission to send troops.

That traces to President Abraham Lincoln, who held in 1861 that Southern states could not legitimately secede. So, he convinced Congress to give him express power to deploy U.S. troops, without asking, into Confederate states he contended were still in the Union. Quite literally, Lincoln used the act as a legal basis to fight the Civil War.

Nunn said situations beyond such a clear insurrection as the Confederacy still require a local request or another trigger that Congress added after the Civil War: protecting individual rights. Ulysses S. Grant used that provision to send troops to counter the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists who ignored the 14th and 15th amendments and civil rights statutes.

During post-war industrialization, violence erupted around strikes and expanding immigration — and governors sought help.

President Rutherford B. Hayes granted state requests during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 after striking workers, state forces and local police clashed, leading to dozens of deaths. Grover Cleveland granted a Washington state governor's request — at that time it was a U.S. territory — to help protect Chinese citizens who were being attacked by white rioters. President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to Colorado in 1914 amid a coal strike after workers were killed.

Federal troops helped diffuse each situation.

Banks stressed that the law then and now presumes that federal resources are needed only when state and local authorities are overwhelmed — and Minnesota leaders say their cities would be stable and safe if Trump's feds left.

As Grant had done, mid-20th century presidents used the act to counter white supremacists.

Franklin Roosevelt dispatched 6,000 troops to Detroit — more than double the U.S. forces in Minneapolis — after race riots that started with whites attacking Black residents. State officials asked for FDR's aid after riots escalated, in part, Nunn said, because white local law enforcement joined in violence against Black residents. Federal troops calmed the city after dozens of deaths, including 17 Black residents killed by local police.

Once the Civil Rights Movement began, presidents sent authorities to Southern states without requests or permission, because local authorities defied U.S. civil rights law and fomented violence themselves.

Dwight Eisenhower enforced integration at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas; John F. Kennedy sent troops to the University of Mississippi after riots over James Meredith's admission and then pre-emptively to ensure no violence upon George Wallace's “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” to protest the University of Alabama's integration.

“There could have been significant loss of life from the rioters” in Mississippi, Nunn said.

Lyndon Johnson protected the 1965 Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery after Wallace's troopers attacked marchers' on their first peaceful attempt.

Johnson also sent troops to multiple U.S. cities in 1967 and 1968 after clashes between residents and police escalated. The same thing happened in Los Angeles in 1992, the last time the Insurrection Act was invoked.

Riots erupted after a jury failed to convict four white police officers of excessive use of force despite video showing them beating a Rodney King, a Black man. California Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush for support.

Bush authorized about 4,000 troops — but after he had publicly expressed displeasure over the trial verdict. He promised to “restore order” yet directed the Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation, and two of the L.A. officers were later convicted in federal court.

President Donald Trump answers questions after signing a bill that returns whole milk to school cafeterias across the country, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)