--------------------------------------------------------- The Basilica Recreation Centre - Before and After INTRODUCTION I was standing in line at a wake at a local funeral home. Behind me was Ray Murphy . I congratulated him on purchasing the Basilica Recreation Centre and wished him success in the future. I mentioned to him that I was on the original planning committee for the centre, and that it would be nice if someone would write a short history of the centre, since it served the needs of thousands of young and not-so-young people in the Charlottetown area. He agreed, and said, "And you are the one to do it." Well, that was not what I was expecting to hear him say. However, after talking to Wilf Driscoll, who had an original program of the official opening, Ivan Dowling , who had a 1933 picture of the minstrel show, and Catherine Hennessey , who had a lot of information on file, I decided to begin writing. It soon became clear that in order to do justice to the project, it would be necessary to tell the story of the Holy Name Hall, The League of the Cross, and the activities that took place there. Two of the activities that I was involved in and have many fond memories of are the Boy Scout movement and the Basilica Youth Club. The building that became the Holy Name Hall was originally the Queen Square Presbyterian Church. When the great fire of 1913 destroyed the Saint Dunstan's Cathedral, the new Zion Presbyterian church had just been completed on the corner of Grafton and Prince streets. Saint Dunstan's Cathedral was able to use the Zion church until the new Basilica was completed in 1919. The diocese bought the Queen Square Zion Church, and it became the Holy Name Hall. The Basilica Recreation Centre includes the time before the centre was opened in 1964, and after it was sold in 2006. Thus, the title: The Basilica Recreation Centre-Before and After.