The MidWeek
DeKalb, Illinois, USA - In the formidable building that once housed the Wurlitzer Company in DeKalb, music is still being made by hand.
Wurlitzer, which made pianos, organs, accordions and jukeboxes at the plant, ceased production there in 1979, but two local men are keeping the musical tradition alive in the sprawling building on Pleasant Street.
Dale Ludewig and Cliff Alexis are creating musical instruments in the mostly-vacant building that was originally built in 1904 to house the Melville Clark Piano Company, and that has been home to manufacturers of musical instruments almost continually since then. In one workshop, Ludewig hand crafts mandolins; in a separate workshop, Alexis uses 55-gallon oil drums to make drums for the Northern Illinois University Steelpan Band.
....“I have been here for about 10 years,” Alexis said. “The art department used to have a studio here. When I started to run out of space (in his studio on NIU’s campus), I went to the dean and asked if I could set up space over here.”
The location, in an industrial neighborhood, is ideal for the manufacture of steel drums, which requires many hours of pounding, cutting and tuning.
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Cliff Alexis, left, and Dale Ludewig pose outside the old Wurlitzer factory in DeKalb. The building, which once housed an organ and piano factory, is now home to workshops where the men make steel drums and stringed instruments
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