Brotherly Love: Bringing A Church Basement Back To Life
By Ukee Washington
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Two college design students are volunteering their talents to bring a church building back to life. Church leaders have longed to restore its basement community center. They say these design students are an answer to a prayer.
Underneath the nearly 150-year-old grandeur of South Philadelphia's St. Charles Borromeo Church lies a piece of hidden Philadelphia: a huge gymnasium, basketball court, a stage, now largely forgotten.
"Over time it's become under-utilized," said church member George Leon. "We really have a vision of this space once again becoming a center of activity, not just for the church but for the community at large."
JohnPaul Beattie, Shakira Hunt, and Chelsea Hodapp don't see an abandoned ruin. They see a chance at resurrection.
"You would never think this underground beauty was down here," Shakira said.
Shakira and Chelsea, interior design students at Moore College of Art and Design, won a $4,000 school grant for supplies to redesign the space.
"It does look like a hopeless place right now," Chelsea said.
They dug up old blueprints and started envisioning ways to bring color and energy. They invited the community to help make huge murals, echoing the church windows upstairs.
"We are hoping to fix it, change it, give it a facelift, brighten it up," Chelsea said.
JohnPaul, a sound engineer and lecturer at the University of the Arts, envisions a music venue, a "living classroom" for his students.
"The age is great, the room is amazing, it's very reverberant, and I can't wait," he said.
They hope to finish the project in 2015. The students will continue to work on the design for the next year. We hope to follow up with their completed work.