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Robeson Plaza

Groundbreaking Honors Paul Robeson's Legacy as Civil Rights Activist, Rutgers Scholar


On Wednesday the university broke ground on the future Paul Robeson Plaza, which will open in April as part of a yearlong centennial celebration of Robeson’s 1919 graduation. The plaza was conceived of and championed by the Class of 1971 for its 45th anniversary, with strong support from the Rutgers African-American Alumni Alliance.


https://news.rutgers.edu/groundbrea...ivil-rights-activist-rutgers-scholar/20180905
 
Doesn't exactly look stunning in these renderings. Rather cheap and low-budget - why not wait a year, save some money, and do something a little more ambitious?

http://www.support.rutgers.edu/s/896/images/editor_documents/prplazarenderings4-4-16.pdf


prplazarenderings4-4-16.pdf
 
Doesn't exactly look stunning in these renderings. Rather cheap and low-budget - why not wait a year, save some money, and do something a little more ambitious?

http://www.support.rutgers.edu/s/896/images/editor_documents/prplazarenderings4-4-16.pdf

prplazarenderings4-4-16.pdf

I agree that the renderings are pretty rough (only hand-drawn concept sketches) and hardly impress. That said, they are from 2+ years ago so I would hope things would have evolved and/or been refined since then in order to go to groundbreaking and bidding the job out to contractors. Given RU's history with various underwhelming efforts, we can't be sure if they will under-deliver on this project as well, but hopefully not.

I guess we have no idea how well the fundraising efforts through the alumni class gift ultimately turned out over the past couple years, so that may have dictated the budget. Waiting a year to further develop this may not have been possible as the timing seems more dictated by trying to get it completed by spring 2019 for unveiling in time for the 100th anniversary of Robeson's graduation in 1919. So they have about 8-9 months to get this built.

Again, could Rutgers have supplemented from another bucket of $ to help make it better, with a greater budget and/or a larger scope? Perhaps, but I have no idea. Now we wait and see what the final product turns out to be.
 
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They also had plans to tear down ford hall. I wonder if those plans were considered when designing this
 
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