Keith Harris (Class of 1984)
When you look at the model that Robeson and Hope and Englewood and some other schools throughout the city—Julian, Corliss—these places were built like prisons. No windows. Most of them have little triangle-like day areas. The day rooms that are all glass and the light comes in on that. If anybody has ever been to jail or to prison, they know that most of the day rooms or most of the light rooms are in the middle, surrounded by brick, very little outside contact. While going there, we didn't think much of it, but in hindsight it was kind of psychologically gearing the students that went there for a prison-type situation. Whitney Young was all glass and steel, and you could be in the classroom and look out the window and see everything. At Robeson, there wasn't that.
Christian Owens (Class of 2018)
When we were trying to learn in classes, you always feel the ground shaking. You always hear a big booming sound going on outside. You think that wrecking ball was gonna come through the classroom because that's how loud the construction was.