Murrell Dobbins Career & Technical Education High School, also known as Murrell Dobbins Vocational High School, is a historic

vocational school A vocational school is a type of educational institution, which, depending on the country, may refer to either secondary or post-secondary education designed to provide vocational education or technical skills required to complete the task ...

building located in the West Lehigh neighborhood of

North Philadelphia North Philadelphia, nicknamed North Philly, is a section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is immediately north of Center City. Though the full extent of the region is somewhat vague, "North Philadelphia" is regarded as everything north of either ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It is part of the

School District of Philadelphia The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) is the school district that includes all school district-operated public schools in Philadelphia. Established in 1818, it is the 8th largest school district in the nation, by enrollment, serving over 200 ...

. The building was designed by Irwin T. Catharine and built in 1936–1937. It is a six- to seven-story, 14-bay, brick building in the Moderne-style. It has a one-story, stone front building. It features brick piers with

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

tops and the building has terra cotta trim. ''Note:'' This includes The school is the home of the Mustangs and the school colors are Flame and Steel. Murrell Dobbins offers 12 CTE programs: Barbering, Biotechnology, Building & Property Maintenance, Business Administration, Commercial & Advertising Arts, Computer Networking, Cosmetology, Culinary Arts, Digital Media, Fashion Design, Graphic Design, Music Production. Dobbins athletics consist of Football, Cross-Country, Volleyball, Soccer, Basketball, Indoor Track, Bowling, Cheerleading, Badminton, Baseball, Softball and Outdoor Track.

History

The Dobbins building was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1988. The namesake, Murrell H. Dobbins (1843-1917), was a New Jersey-born man who became a member of the Philadelphia school board. At one point the school had two campuses and was known as the Dobbins/Randolph Area Vocational Technical School. It had absorbed the Randolph Skills Center, named after

Asa Philip Randolph Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was an American labor unionist and civil rights activist. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful African-American led labor union. I ...

Notable alumni

* Benjamin Britt, surrealist painter *

Hank Gathers Eric Wilson "Hank" Gathers Jr. (February 11, 1967 – March 4, 1990) was an American college basketball player for the Loyola Marymount Lions in the West Coast Conference (WCC). As a junior in 1989, he became the second player in NCAA Division I ...

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

player * Gregory "Bo" Kimble, NBA player. * Dawn Staley, head coach of women's basketball at University of South Carolina; 3-time Olympian * Doug Overton, retired professional basketball player and current head coach of the Springfield Armor of the NBA Development League. * Jami M. Valentine, Ph.D., Physicist, first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics from Johns Hopkins University. Dobbins class of 1992. * Bobby Eli, Philly Soul guitarist, songwriter, producer, arranger. Founding member of

MFSB MFSB, officially standing for "Mother Father Sister Brother", was a pool of more than 30 studio musicians based at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios. They worked closely with the production team of Gamble and Huff and producer/arranger Thom ...

. *

Thom Bell Thomas Randolph Bell (January 27th, 1943 – December 22, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, arranger, pianist, and composer known as one of the creators of Philadelphia soul in the 1970s. He found success as a producer ...

, Philly Soul songwriter, producer and arranger.

External links

Murrell Dobbins Career and Technical Education High School
* *

References

School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Moderne architecture in Pennsylvania School buildings completed in 1937 Dobbins, Murrell, Vocational School Dobbins, Murrell, Vocational School Dobbins, Murrell, Vocational School Dobbins, Murrell, Vocational School School District of Philadelphia Public high schools in Pennsylvania 1937 establishments in Pennsylvania {{Philadelphia-stub