Repurposing Our Lives

Image by Vectorarte on Freepik

I was proud of Philadelphia the other day when I attended the 2023 Preservation Achievement Awards on North Broad Street at Vie. My husband’s company, Kreilick Conservation, got an award for conserving the masonry on the exterior of the Athenaeum, a gorgeous, Italian Renaissance Revival brownstone, filled with books on the history of architecture and interior design.

I was immensely proud of my husband and his team for being recognized, but my overriding admiration went to HELP Philadelphia VI for transforming an old, Art Deco-era elementary school into apartments for homeless and low-income veterans, seniors and the differently abled. There were over-the-top upgrades and revitalizations to grand places like the Curtis Institute and Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, but knowing how desperately we need affordable housing in Philadelphia, it was no surprise that the audience clapped long and hard for the adaptive reuse of the old Reynolds School.

Repurposing is a gift of a second, third, fourth life to something - someone - who’s life seemed over.

I feel the same way about a country club that went bust near my house. Acres of overgrown greens and sand traps have been converted to meadows of ornamental grass, wild flowers and walking trails. It’s open to people of all ages, abilities and means. Visitors walk through covered bridges made of repurposed shipping containers; bat boxes and birdhouses sit high above the ground on decommissioned telephone poles.

Repurposing is transformative. I am repurposing myself these days, having retired from a 30-year career in education. I can’t be apartments for veterans or a park filled with birds, but I can envision a fresh purpose for myself. I can plunge into my own reconstruction and feel useful in a whole new way.

What - who - can be a given a brand new life? A thrilling new purpose? Look around and do some repurposing magic of your own.