Americans buy too many Bibles. Just as a librarian who takes donations; that’s where all of them end up.
Americans build too many churches. This is more of a problem, because they’re usually too large to fit in the library’s drop-off slot.
So the website Mental Floss has collected 11 New Uses for Old Churches. Here are some of my favorites:
This is the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity house, associated with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. This seems like an appropriate use for an old Catholic church, since the clergy looks like an aging fraternity anyway. (I’m just a few miles south of RPI. How did I miss this?)
Laser tag! Scrambling over pews and taking cover behind the alter for that perfect “urban combat” feel.
BTW, anybody else remember when laser tag and it’s knock-offs were absolutely huge? Remember when laser tag had a Saturday morning cartoon show? I do. I’d like those brain cells back now, please.
And of course, the Atlanta Freethought Society purchased this Baptist church. With the numbers of church-goers declining and the number of atheists increasing, this only makes sense. Where else are you going to store all those atheists? We’re notoriously hard to pack.
why isn’t “Turn it into a museum” there?
Church rehabbers typically have to confront horrendous energy bills, as insulation in churches usually sucks. Sometime the passive solar aspects offset this, but not much. My first move would be to install ceiling fans.
My use for a church would be to put in a hardwood suspended floor like in a dojo, and use the space for all sorts of movement skills classes- yoga, martial arts, dance. So many good instructors can’t afford commercial space rental, so they could share the space on a rotating basis. Hopefully there would also be enough space for a small shop and healthy snack bar.
For residential use, I’d install a small elevator and claim the choir loft as my 1001 Nights bedroom, hung with oriental fabrics. The main floor could be divided into rooms with moveable panels.
I love the idea of the Atlanta free thought society literally displacing a center of delusional and irrational thinking.
My college bought an abandoned church and turned it into studio and teaching space for art students. I spent a semester painting nude models who posed where the pulpit used to be.
Funny, there’s a church in my home town that occupies a building that used to be a library. (They built a new, larger library, as the old one was getting cramped)
In Charlotte we have one that was turned into an art gallery and artist residency. It’s a cool space with all the stone work: http://www.allartnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Art-has-a-natural-way-of-bringing-people-and-ideas-together.jpg
That is a beautiful building!
Pittsburgh has “The Church Brew Works” their slogan: “On the seventh day, God created beer!”
http://www.churchbrew.com/
Pittsburgh also has a hookah bar in a former church. One of the two locations of Sphinx Cafe http://www.sphinx-cafe.com was for many years the Angels’ Corner Restaurant.
I don’t know how they missed this given that they covered a frat that used the church at RPI.
http://rpi.edu/tour/vcc/index.html
This is the computer center at RPI, now that’s a church baby!
I still remember the church in the movie Alice’s Restaurant………..
it was bought by a hippie couple and turned into a hostel for all their friends and whoever else stopped by for Thanksgiving supper
I used to work in an old Church in Niagara Falls. It was where the next-door sports store kept all of the cross country and downhill skiis for rent. We still called it “The Church”, and I can confirm that the insulation was horrible.
Also, this:
Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on – two years ago on
Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the
restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the
church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and
Fasha the dog. And livin’ in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of
room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin’ all that room,
seein’ as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn’t
have to take out their garbage for a long time.
Is that Niagara Falls, NY or Niagara Falls, Ontario? I’m trying to figure out where exactly that is. Any more clues?
I’ve always wanted to build a web page dedicated to churches that have been turned into something useful. Now, I’m slightly more motivated. Watch for it in the coming decade!
My high school used to be a church
There’s also The Church nightclub in Denver : http://www.coclubs.com/venue/detail/the-church
Here is a very imaginative use of an old church here in Gatineau (Canada)
http://altitudegym.ca/en/
Condos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuBtqOdqNG4
Only almost half a mil for 3 bed, 3.5 baths, near Camden Harbor, Maine, called “The Steeples.”
I think it’s my favorite use of a church so far. Even though it looks kind of tacky, it amuses me because of it.
Going outside North America, we have http://www.sacred-destinations.com/russia/st-petersburg-st-isaac-cathedral.htm
Sadly it has returned to at least part-time church, but it is truly a magnificent site, if you ever happen to be be in St. Petersburg.
Nice hotel in Belgium:
http://www.martins-hotels.com/nl/hotel/martins-patershof
A church turned restaurant and bar in Utrecht, Holland.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g188616-d779066-Reviews-Olivier-Utrecht.html
After smoking a little joint it was quite overwhelming going in there.
I go to a 24-hour workout facility (gym) that used to be a church. I enjoy doing abs and stretching on the stage/pulpit thing. I think the elliptical machines stand on the old choir stage area.