In Haarlem, a beautiful old city in Holland, the organ museum is
threatened with closure, because the city council has sold its building
to a supermarket chain.

The many friends of the museum took their organs to Haarlem on March
5th, 2002, for a protest demonstration from the organ museum to the
town hall, to give a petition to the mayor of Haarlem, which also
included the many letters of support sent to us by many of you.

We were very happy to have exactly 40 organs present, from the small
18-key to the big 90-key Carl Frei organs and everything in between,
including the world-famous "Arab".  On the market square all 40 organs
were playing together -- not very musical to hear but very impressive!
Now we hope for good news from the city council, which promised to help
find a new building for the beautiful collection.

Included are two photos of the event for the MMD picture gallery.
If you want to know more, please visit http://www.draaiorgelmuseum.org/

Jan Kees de Ruijter
The Netherlands

 - - -

 [ Stichting Stadsorgel Haarlem "het Kunkelsorgel", or in English,
 [ Haarlem Organ Museum presented by the Kunkels foundation.  The
 [ secretary of Kunkels Organ Foundation, Mr. Cornelis Ruijgvoorn,
 [ writes about their determination:
 [
 [ "To go to court to stop the present owner of our building from
 [ throwing us out costs a lot of money.  We tried to secure these
 [ expenses by applying at the Council of Legal Aid.  We had to explain
 [ our legal position and our financial situation.  Last week we
 [ received message that our plea was rejected.  It was decided that we
 [ had sufficient assets (read: valuable organs!) to bear the burden.
 [ So even this we have to do on our own strength (and we will!)."
 [
 [ See http://www.draaiorgelmuseum.org/engels.htm  and also the photos
 [ at http://mmd.foxtail.com/Pictures/   -- Robbie