Roxbury Residents Fight Planned Dearborn Middle School Demolition

The Dearborn School in Roxbury. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

BOSTONA major battle is coming to a head over the fate of a century-old Boston Public School building that most recently housed the Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury.

The building is scheduled for demolition to make way for the first new school to be built in the city in more than a decade.

Neighborhood residents, property owners and historical preservationists are fighting to save the building, turning in hundreds (they say a thousand) signatures on a petition to save the Dearborn.

The Building And Its History Belong To A Story From Which We Should Be Learning

Perched atop a steep hill on Greenville Street, just blocks from Dudley Square, sits what until June was the Dearborn Middle School.

The exterior of the High School of Practical Arts in Roxbury, circa 1920-1960. (City of Boston Archives)

It first opened in the 1913-14 school year as the High School of Practical Arts for Girls. It was the first public vocational high school purposefully built for girls in Boston.

Barry Gaither, director and curator of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, who works with Bostons Museum of Fine Arts, says it was the largest and most important building built by the schoolhouse department in many years.

Gaither and many neighborhood residents want the building declared a historical landmark that should be preserved.

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Roxbury Residents Fight Planned Dearborn Middle School Demolition