The old church at Jones and Hawkins avenues stood desolate under the gray sky of North Braddock.

Behind the rotten door, lost among heaps of scrap wood, torn cartons and thousands of miscellaneous things, and encircled by loud music and a sea of dust are several women. It looked as if they were dancing -- but they were dancing with crowbars, shovels and buckets.

They are the Transformazium, working on the self-imposed task of revitalizing the declining former steelmaking boroughs of Braddock and North Braddock, where the loss of population led to thousands of buildings being left derelict.

Since coming there, they have created community arts projects, worked to communicate with their new neighbors, experimented with urban farming and undertaken the mammoth job of rehabbing an abandoned church by hand.

The group comprises five artists: Erin Harrell, 32, of St. Petersburg, Fla., and New York City residents Caledonia Curry, 31, Dana Bishop-Root, 28, Leslie Stem, 29, and Ruthie Stringer, who doesn't want to give her age.

In their home city, the New Yorkers worked together in Toyshop, a public art collective. In April 2007, Ms. Curry and Ms. Stem came to Braddock for an art show and were awestruck by the romance and beauty they saw in large, old buildings with complicated design and structure that lay deserted.

Their artistic eyes immediately spotted the possibility of creating art in a community, the potential for collaboration, conversation and explorations in North Braddock and Braddock.

"Let's start this," Ms. Bishop-Root responded to Ms. Curry's idea of developing a vibrant future for the area based on its rich history. The other two New Yorkers, who share a passion for urban farming and food production, jumped on board, along with Ms. Harrell, a friend of Ms. Curry.

The Transformazium formed, meant to be a place to transform.

Four members of the group moved to the area in late 2007 and early 2008. Ms. Bishop-Root settled in North Braddock and Ms. Harrell, Ms. Stringer and Ms. Stem in Braddock.

Giving up the conveniences of big cities, the women have been living alongside economically struggling African-Americans, riding their bikes in the neighborhoods where the risk of rape, murder and robbery is more than four times higher than the national average.

They are beginning to call the communities their home.

"If I want my home to be safe, beautiful, sustainable, then it's up to me to do what I can to create that reality," Ms. Harrell said with a trace of pride.

In November, with about $20,000 -- the money coming from Ms. Curry, the major funder, and from a fundraiser held in New York City -- they bought an abandoned United Brethren church from the Allegheny County Vacant Properties Recovery Program.

The building was rapidly deteriorating, said Vicki Vargo, director of the nearby Braddock Carnegie Library, who has worked with the women on a project in the library.

The easiest solution would have been to bulldoze it, as the boroughs had done to many of their unused buildings.

Inside the church, now called the Transformazium, Ms. Bishop-Root held onto a wall, wrapping it with plastic sheets. Sweat stuck the gray T-shirt to her slender body. The weather forecast warned of a downpour; she needed to keep the wood dry.

Meanwhile, Ms. Stringer schlepped the musty carpet out; the fabric came apart in her hands.

"This Dumpster, at 3 p.m. yesterday, it was empty," Ms. Bishop-Root said, pointing at a 10-cubic-yard container, full of plaster and dirt. A smile lit up her soot-smeared face.

The rehabilitation-by-hand approach was like "looking at something from standing on the head after a long time doing it from standing on the feet," she said, explaining why it excited her.

"The piles get smaller, our muscles grow bigger," Ms. Stringer added, looking at a scratch on her muscular arms, which she called "Braddock biceps."

They were working to transform the building, damaged by a fire in 2005, into a community arts center.

The women, with more time than money, tore the burned part down by hand. Their utmost effort, however, was sorting the construction waste materials for reuse and preventing the lead, mercury and other contaminants from polluting the site.

"If you talk to people there, they'll say it's crazy," said Jacob Bielecki, a graduate of Bennington College, who worked with Transformazium. "They carried it out in the middle of winter!"

"Some people might not understand, but I respect their decision," said Braddock Mayor John Fetterman, referring to the women's rejection of mechanical energy.

For the Transformazium members, the manual labor is rewarding.

"I'm over that disappointment," Ms. Stem said, joking about not finding the money said to be hidden in the walls. "I enjoy daydreaming about the glorious future that material could turn into."

Her group has attended various community meetings to share their experience and knowledge as ecologically friendly rehabbers.

Ms. Stem and her friends also set up a silk-screen studio in Braddock Carnegie Library, a community skill-building workshop, whose grand opening will be tonight.

Having marked a wood panel with a pencil, Ms. Stem placed it under the saw. The blade cut through the wood like cheese.

"I didn't learn it at school," the little woman explained, putting the pencil back in her pants pocket.

Moving to Braddock had meant a huge sacrifice for her, she said; she had to give up on "a wonderful romantic relationship.

"We tried to continue long distance, but ultimately broke it off back in November."

Ms. Stem elaborated that they paid themselves from the funds. Their projects had not generated much income, so some of them supplemented their wages with other jobs. Some lived frugally.

"We can imagine rainbows everywhere we look," said Ms. Bishop-Root. "That gives us the energy to keep working even when we are facing the challenges."

The young artist catches up on social and night life by monthly visits to her family and New York friends, and an occasional bus ride to Lawrenceville or the Andy Warhol Museum on the North Shore for a dance party.

In the late afternoon, Ms. Bishop-Root left the silk-screen studio for her garden on the hill between her house and the library. Sawdust fell from her eyelashes when she peeked into the compost bin. She smiled: People had put their organic waste in it.

The previous day, the woman climbed on the top of the abandoned house nearby, throwing the decayed roof to the ground. She will turn it into a communal storehouse.

Ms. Bishop-Root mentioned another step toward becoming a part of her adopted community: She finally got a Vietnamese Buddhist monk to talk to her after months of regularly saying hello to him.

The women's plan also includes turning the red bus, a rusty '91 Ford they bought from a friend, into the vehicle for communication.

"It will be used as a mobile art installation, a bookmobile. Or to transport a community group to an art show or dance performance or Steelers game," Ms. Stringer wrote on the Transformazium's Web site.

They have used it to carry dirt and compost to neighborhood raised bed gardens, scrap metal from the library to the scrap yard. From inside the bus, they wave at local people.

"They certainly brighten the surroundings," said Ms. Vargo, who, like many in the area, is wary of newcomers with unusual ideas.

For a year and a half now, the murals and art installations created during their self-introduction, an art project involving professional artists and local youth, have been shining from once-deserted and menacing corners, underpasses and lots.

After all the explorations they have experienced, the women still find their new home tempting as ever.

"I feel like there's always something else I don't know just over that hill over there," said Ms. Stem.