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Friday Slide Show: City College Share This on LinkedIn   Share This on Google   Tweet This   Forward This

22 February 2019

Two and a half miles from the bunker, on a little hill of its own, City College has stood as a beacon of learning since the first half of the last century. It's dark observation dome stands above the motto chiseled in its facade: The Truth Shall Make You Free.

It is itself a free education, part of the state's community college system, and has counted as many as 90,000 enrolled students over its sprawling campuses throughout town.

Dad was the editor of The Guardian, the school paper, after World War II before he moved on to UC Berkeley. And Mom studied secretarial skills there after high school before working at Standard Oil. So we have a fondness for the place.

And once in a while when we need a good five mile hike, we walk down there to take a look around. Which is exactly what we did earlier this week.

After the recent storms, the sky was bright and blue, so we took along our Micro Four Thirds camera to explore the campus.

After the recent storms, the sky was bright and blue, so we took along our Micro Four Thirds camera to explore the campus.

There's a lot to see, but we restricted ourselves to just a few things, mainly the massive original building, which features huge mosaics at either end. Built in 1940, Timothy Pflueger's Science Building is the landmark building of the college.

Pflueger is the man who brought Diego Rivera to the city to paint a few murals, including Pan American Unity, which we discussed a while ago. He also donated the huge stone busts of Da Vinci and Edison that guard the exterior east wall and courtyards of the building.

On the second floor, you'll find a mural depicting of the first swamp forests (360 to 300 million years ago). The mural came from the California Academy of Sciences.

The views east, extending as far as Mount Diablo, are inspiring.

George M. Rush Stadium celebrates the college's long-time football coach whose record included seven of the team's 10 national championships. Rush himself played defensive back for CCSF in 1966 and 1967. Then he spent five seasons (1972-76) as an assistant coach for the Rams before he returned to CCSF to replace Dutch Elston (an original on the 49ers' first team in 1946) for the 1977 season. Dutch's kid was the director at Westlake Park in the 1960s where we and our buddies ruled the roost.

We did run across the Journalism Dept. a bit downhill from the stadium. We had to chuckle. Journalism has never enjoyed the resources it deserves and that was true at City too.

The show finishes with an amusing banner advertising the art galleries with a photograph. Photography, at least, has managed to stake its claim among the arts.

The college has had its troubles recently. But as we strolled the campus it was clear to us the appetite for learning was not diminished. The old halls of the Science Building had no time for dust to settle on them.


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