Cambridge church steeple removed after damaged by nor'easter winds

Last week's nasty nor'easter is causing problems this week for a Cambridge church.

The First Korean Church in Cambridge was working on securing money to renovate its aging steeple, but that quickly changed.

A neighbor, and local architect, noticed during the storm that the steeple didn't look right.

"I looked up and the thing was visibly wobbling and that scared me so I called the city," said David Torrey. "I was afraid the thing was going to crumble into the roof, go right through into the sanctuary."

The city cordoned off areas around the church, closed the congregation for the weekend and re-routed a local bus.

"We were able to determine things were actually worse than what we thought they were. We realized a lot of people were inconvenienced by this, but our primary responsibility is the life and safety of residents," said Acting Cambridge Fire Chief Gerry Mahoney.

Work crews even changed their initial plan on how to take the 15-20 foot section down.

"They were going to try to take it down piece by piece, but then they came out on the weekend and it was blowing around and moving so much that it was kinda unstable," said Engineer John Wathne.

The church plans to replicate the old steeple.

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