The south side of Cleveland Central Catholic High School has a new look since six faux stained-glass windows were installed last week over original windows that dated to 1921.
The new window panels represent the four founding parish high schools that created Central Catholic: St. Stanislaus, St. John Cantius, St. Michael the Archangel and Our Lady of Lourdes. The other two panels feature images of Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII.
Since the brick building, which is in Cleveland?s Slavic Village neighborhood on the southeast side of the city, is considered a historic structure, school officials worked with the city to obtain the necessary permits for the project. Other windows in the building were replaced with more energy efficient panels.
Although they appear as stained-glass windows, the new panels are actually images of windows from other structures. The images were crafted to fit onto specially designed panels that slipped into frames over the existing windows, which no longer function as windows. During a previous renovation, those six windows were covered over by a wall on the inside.
Work on the window project was in the planning stages for quite some time. The project got under way in March.
Central Catholic, which operates as a diocesan high school, was created in 1968 when the four parish high schools merged. At first, it operated on four separate campuses, but consolidated over the years to a single site on the St. Stanislaus campus.
The school has more than 600 students in grades 9-12.
Central Catholic is located at 6500 Baxter Ave., Cleveland. Visit centralcatholichs.org for more information.
