The Old Sad Dudley Manor on Centre Street

The Board of Regents & Roxbury Community College (RCC) are making their mark in Highland Park.

As the owners of record of 167 Centre Street, the Regents had been leasing out the premises to to long-time tenants, F.I.R.S.T Askia Academy. For many years FIRST Academy held a Christmas Tree sale from the adjacent RCC parking lot. They were decent neighbors, keeping to themselves and keeping the grounds in reasonably good shape.

But some time before February 2010, FIRST Academy pulled up stakes and left. We had first noted that the building was vacant toward the end of February. [The Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center and The Dimock Center seem to be the only non-aggregating sites on the web that describe FIRST.]

It is a gracious house and we wanted to write about it, but hesitated to bring attention to it when it was vacant and disused.

We needn't have worried.

The picture at the beginning of this post is what in-bound commuters on Columbus Avenue see when they look across the parking lot after passing the intersection with Centre Street. The careless, unpainted boards of plywood fairly cry out to those passing by Abandoned! Disused! Vacant! Disinvestment!


We know times are tough for everyone. We're sure that at the time this boarding up was done, it was done with the best intention of securing an important community asset. The plywood, no doubt, seemed a responsible guard against squatting, vandalism, and worse.

And yet, we wish there had been more thought given before these plywood sheets were slapped up. When RCC was being built there was talk of making the Dudley Manor into the president's house. What a grand president's house it would have been. But a "residential treatment program for recovering substance abusers" was a righteous use, too.

At the end of August, City Councillor Rob Consalvo proposed (with Councillors Maureen Feeney and Steve Murphy concurring) an amendment to a city ordinance governing maintenance of foreclosed property. It would have enabled the Inspectional Services Department to require owners of foreclosed property to secure the windows and doors from the inside to make the property look more secure and less offensive. If the City government considers compelling absentee landlords to treat the streetscape with respect, RCC might do well to reconsider how it has defaced the Dudley Manor. [Universal Hub article from 8/25/10 1:26 pm]

This summer RCC undertook a significant program of resetting all the granite coping on its three brick buildings. No doubt there was other work done at the roof line as well that was not obvious from the ground. The community is happy that the college is taking care of its buildings.

But, the old Dudley Manor house should receive at least as much care from RCC as do the new buildings. Perhaps there is a plan for this historic house. It would be nice to learn what it is.

Here is the Dudley Manor on a warm February afternoon before its plywooding.


Curiously, there is very little to be found about the Dudley Manor on the web. Except for the mention on the Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center site, it is not even clear that the building should be called the Dudley Manor.