Roxbury Community College
1234 Columbus Ave.
1988
Architect : Stull and Lee
Roxbury Community College is a state supported two year coed liberal arts institution, founded in 1973. The campus offers programs in liberal arts, business administration, health sciences, human service and the technologies.
HISTORY
First located in Grove Hall in an old car dealership, it moved to Dudley Street in 1975 and then to the former Boston State College campus on Huntington Ave in 1982. It moved to its present location on Columbus Ave in 1988. The current site of Roxbury Community College was chosen because urban renewal had demolished all buildings in the area in preparation for the construction of I 95 through Roxbury. When protest from the communities of Roxbury, Brookline, Jamaica Plain and Boston prevented the construction of this highway, the open space was used for the campus of RCC and for the South West corridor park. The site was formerly used by the H and J. Pfaff Brewing Company (1857-1918).
PUBLIC ART
Father and Child Reading, by John Wilson is found between the Media Arts Center and the Administration Building. Created in 1990, it is a 7 foot bronze statute celebrating the relationship between fathers and sons.
John Wilson (born 1922) grew up in Roxbury. He studied at the Boston Museum School and then in France under Fernand Leger. In Mexico, he was strongly influenced my muralists and he turned to “democratic “ forms of expression—print making and public art. He came to Boston University in 1964 and is now a Professor Emeritus of Sculpture and Drawing.
Nyame Biribi Wo Soro, 1991, ceremonial doors in mahogany, copper, porcelain enamel, 10’ x 5’ by Napoleon Jones Henderson (born 1943) is found in the Resource Library on the second floor. The title is translated “God There is Something in Heaven.”
Jones –Henderson was born in Chicago, earned a certificate from the American Artists and Student Center at the Sorbonne in Paris, graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1970 and received a Masters degree at Northern Illinois University.
ARHICTECTURE
The building was designed by the firm of Stull and Lee.
Sources:
Carlock,Marty. A Guide to Public Art in Greater Boston. Boston: The Harvard Common Press, 1993.