The world’s largest pipe organ isn’t tucked inside some grand European cathedral. It’s built into the walls of a sports and concert arena on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, hidden behind the same scoreboard that hangs over hockey games and Miss America. It’s called the Midmer-Losh, and with an official count of 33,112 pipes, it’s officially the largest musical instrument on Earth.
If you’ve been to a Sixers G League game, a boxing match, or a concert at Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall and had no idea any of this was going on above your head, you’re not alone. Most people walk right past it.
What Exactly Is the Midmer-Losh Organ?
The Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ, also known as the Midmer-Losh, is the pipe organ in the Main Auditorium of the landmark Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company during 1929–1932. Construction took place from May 1929 through December 1932, shortly after the hall itself was built.
New Jersey State Senator Emerson L. Richards designed the organ, and the Midmer-Losh Organ Company of Merrick, Long Island, installed it from 1929 to 1932. Richards wasn’t a professional musician. Politics was his profession, but pipe organs were his passion, and he described himself as an “Organ Architect,” publishing some 80 articles in organ journals over the years. He co-designed the instrument with organ builder Charles Seibert Losh, an American musician, conductor, and organ builder who was president of the Midmer-Losh Organ Company and oversaw the initial installation, though the partnership between the two men ended in lawsuits and acrimony.
The pipes themselves aren’t lined up in one visible rank the way you’d picture a church organ. The organ is housed in eight chambers arranged in a surround-sound configuration throughout the hall. The whole instrument weighs over 150 tons.
Why Is It the Largest Organ in the World?
Size in the organ world is measured by pipe count, not physical footprint. It is the largest organ in the world as measured by the number of pipes — officially 33,112, though the exact number is uncertain. That’s not the only record it holds, either. There are ten 32-foot ranks, the world’s only 64-foot Diaphone (there are only two 64-foot stops in the world, and this is by far the largest), and four voices on 100 inches of wind, which is double that of any other organ ever built.
All that wind pressure exists for one reason: the room it has to fill. The Main Auditorium was built as the world’s largest unobstructed indoor space, a barrel vault measuring 456 by 310 by 137 feet and enclosing 5,500,000 cubic feet of air. Boardwalk Hall’s organ is more powerful than a dozen orchestras, able to both whisper and thunder into that vast arena. A regular church organ would just get swallowed whole in a space that size, so Richards essentially had to invent a louder kind of pipe.
How Much Did It Cost to Build?
Money was tight even before the stock market crashed. The organ was originally planned to have 43,000 pipes at a cost of $300,000, but the budget was exceeded and the pipe count had to be reduced due to lack of space, with the final cost landing around $350,000 — close to $600,000 in today’s money. Other sources put the final price a bit higher: it cost between $450,000 and $500,000 to build. Either way, this was a genuinely enormous investment during the early years of the Great Depression.
What Happened to It After the 1944 Hurricane?
The organ’s story isn’t just about construction records — it’s also a decades-long saga of near-total ruin and a slow comeback. The Midmer-Losh was built from 1929 until 1932 and only had twelve years of full functionality before damage from the Great Hurricane of 1944 sent it into decline. A hurricane flooded Boardwalk Hall in 1944, causing major damage to the organ’s blowers.
For much of the twentieth century, it just sat there, silent. There was about a forty-year period when no public recitals were held because of the organ’s poor condition, and the doors to the console on the stage shut. Things got worse before they got better: the building itself closed from 1999 to 2002 for a $90 million refit, during which no work whatsoever was done on either organ.
A dedicated nonprofit eventually stepped in. New Jersey established the Historic Organ Restoration Committee in 2004 to oversee funds and work on the Midmer-Losh. Progress has been slow and expensive — the committee estimates it will take $16 million to completely restore both instruments. As of recent reporting, roughly 95% of the smaller Ballroom Kimball organ has been brought back to life, along with about 60% of the massive Midmer-Losh, with full project completion anticipated for 2030.
Can You Actually Go See It?
Yes, and it’s one of the best free things you can do at the Jersey Shore. Free daily recitals and tours run Monday through Friday, with concerts running from Memorial Day through Labor Day and select weeks in December, excluding holidays. Each session is a free half-hour recital followed by a half-hour tour.
If you want to go deeper than the lunchtime recital, there’s a more immersive option. The Curator’s Tour, a behind-the-scenes look, runs April through December on Wednesdays at 10 a.m., and this two-hour tour gives an extremely detailed history and guided walk through areas of the building normally closed to the public. The tour includes a walk-through of two of the large organ chambers, a chance to get up close to the seven-manual console the organist uses, and a stop at the restoration shop to meet the team doing the actual repair work. Tickets for that deeper tour run $10, which is nothing considering what you get to see.
Beyond the regular tours, the organ occasionally headlines its own show. In 2026, for example, celebrity organist Anna Lapwood is scheduled to return to play a full organ concert at Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall. Keep an eye on the venue and the restoration committee’s own event calendar if you want to catch one of these bigger performances rather than the daily noon recital.
A Second, Smaller Organ Worth Knowing About
The Midmer-Losh gets all the attention, but it’s not alone in the building. The smaller W.W. Kimball organ, located in the Adrian Phillips Ballroom, was built in 1930 to accompany motion picture screenings and is one of the largest original installations left in a public entertainment venue in the nation. This unique organ was built by W. W. Kimball to accompany silent films, so its voicing leans theatrical — think bird calls, sound effects, and orchestral flourishes rather than the thunderous church-organ tone of its bigger sibling.
Why This Is Worth a Detour
Atlantic City gets reduced to casinos and boardwalk fudge in a lot of people’s minds, which is a shame, because there’s a genuinely strange and wonderful piece of American engineering sitting quietly inside one of its biggest buildings. This is an organ nicknamed the “Sonic Mt. Rushmore,” designed by a state senator who treated pipe organs like a life’s work rather than a hobby, built during the depths of the Depression, nearly destroyed by a hurricane, and now being nursed back to life one pipe at a time by volunteers and organists who clearly love the thing.
Next time you’re at the Shore and someone suggests another round of mini golf, tell them you’ve got something better lined up: standing in a 5.5-million-cubic-foot room while the loudest instrument on the planet fills every inch of it.
NOTE TO THE ADVENTURER: This guide is meant to spark curiosity for what lies beyond the horizon — not to serve as a guarantee. Roads fall into disrepair, buildings are torn down and rebuilt, and properties change hands; 'tis your responsibility to do your own research before setting out. Always heed local and regional law, and always respect ground that isn't your own. Take every entry here as a suggestion, not a decree. This guide's contents were gathered with the aid of artificial intelligence, and like any scout, it will from time to time lead you astray. You assume all risk in following its counsel, and neither this blog nor its author is liable for any loss, injury, or misfortune that results.
