organist michael it comes from the same place where hundred years ago san francisco hosted the panama pacific exposition sound of a mythical pipe organ, 40 feet tall and 4 feet wide that played everyday an organ you probably never heard of. >> to have an idea of what this instrument can do. >> so friends of exposition organ, vick has collected the sights and sounds and memories of that instrument in hopes of hearing it live some day but that will take some doing. >> the exposition still exists beneath the grass of civic plaza. you'll find out downstairs in the old brooks hall. a room filled with the unused and unresearched and the unheard. >> the tallist pipes weighs 700 pounds. >> 40 tons of organ strewn around the floor. it's unclaimed by any city department cloaked in dust and darkness. >> the last time this organ played in public in san francisco it was 1989. just before the loma prieta earthquake. [ siren ] >> the instruments life begin as san francisco burned. inside the civic auditorium after the exposition a wall collapsed. >> it covered all the exposed pipes and about a foot of plaster and debr