Quake Took a Bite Out of History : Spires on the city’s oldest Protestant church, built in the English Gothic Cathedral style in 1932, were removed because of potential danger of falling.

Shortly after the earthquake struck we discovered that three of the four spires--actually, they’re called finials--were at strange angles. Two were hanging very precariously. They had sheared off the tower during the quake.

We hired two big cranes that removed them all. The fourth finial was healthy but it was removed also. Had they not been removed we believe they would have come down during the aftershocks.

One could have hit people on 6th Street and the other two would have gone through the church chancel, the nave, the tower and the organs of the church. Each of those finials, had they come down, could have done $3 million to $5 million worth of damage.

Each finial is 17 feet, 6 inches tall and each weighs about 12 tons. There was one on each corner of the central tower. Each had a four-way cross on top of it, and three of those crosses came off during the earthquake and rained down in pieces below. The finials were cast in concrete originally and lifted into position by crane and attached by reinforcing rods.

Those rods were all sheared through. The torque action at the top of that tower was tremendous. They are 200 feet up; that’s the equivalent of the 18th to 20th floor. My office, in Hollywood at Sunset and Vine, is on the 10th floor and everything in it was moved around.

The church was established in 1867 and is constructed in the English Gothic Cathedral style. The building itself is an earthquake-resistant building and structurally there were no problems at all.

There was some damage to our Mudd Memorial Organ, mainly from parts of the organ that were high up falling on parts that are lower. We’ve gotten an estimate of about $75,000 worth of damage to that organ.

It cost over $100,000 to remove the finials and do some additional shoring at the top of the tower to assure that it was stable.

We expect that we will recast the finials out of a lighter material--not concrete--and replace them. But it will not be done immediately. There are more pressing matters right now, such as repairing the organ.

I don’t know what will be done, ultimately, with the old finials. Some members of the congregation have suggested that they might make good decorative elements--possibly placed in the church’s gardens.

The tower itself is really a landmark. But it doesn’t look too bad, just stubbed off a little at the corners. What we do in the long run depends on the architectural and engineering reports.

Meanwhile, services were held as usual on Sunday and they’ll go on as usual in the future.