The First United Methodist Church of Los Angeles, formerly located at the corner of 8th and Hope streets in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles possessed a grand and stately building with an ornate brick and terra cotta exterior, a solid marble narthex, and a highly decorated wood and plaster sanctuary. Because of several factors, including a dwindling congregation, an aging building that was in need of major repairs, and a prime and very desirable piece of real estate, the congregation decided to sell the building and move to a smaller location.

     Williamson-Warne & Associates was contacted by the church in late December of 1982. We were told of the sale of the building, and that the church desired to remove their pipe organ with the intention of finding it a home. Williamson-Warne & Associates submitted a bid, and was awarded the contract. The removal began in January.

     The church's pipe organ, a 1923, 4 manual Austin of 88 ranks, was a very large instrument. The majority of the instrument was contained in 2 chambers on either side of the choir loft in the front of the church. There were several obstacles in the removal of the organ. First, we were given a very small window to remove the organ, a mere 35 days, which meant that we were there removing the organ 15 hours a day, 7 days a week for 5 weeks straight! Second, since most of the windchests, expression boxes were so large, and could not be rigged out of the chamber easily and quickly enough for the demanding schedule, they would have to be removed by a crane. Fortunately, a crane was necessary for the removal of other objects within the church, but the pipe organ part removal had to be coordinated around everything else. Since the building was being torn down, everything else of value was being sold and removed around us. This included 3 large, glass mosaic panels, made by Louis Tiffany, that were installed across the front of the church between the organ chambers. So we had to deal with and work with (and around) the art conservators who were removing the Tiffany glass panels, and the salvage companies, and the hundreds of people that they brought through to sell different things to, the different people who were removing things from the building, and of course the myriad of church personal (both local and district) historic groups, and city personal and inspectors. To make matters worse, because of certainly contractual obligations between the church and the buyer, portions of the building were being torn down while we were working on the organ's removal!

     The organ was removed on time, and undamaged, and was placed in storage. The church attempted to secure a buyer, but no buyer could be located that could meet all of the terms that the church specified. The organ was eventually procured by Williamson-Warne & Associates, who have used many of the components of the organ in other instruments.

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