Grahm Junior College Memorial page

Grahm Junior College was founded in 1950 as the Cambridge School of Business. It began as one of a chain of schools whose main office was in New York, with two other schools in Philadelphia and Chicago. There were nine students in the first class. Milton Grahm assumed Presidency of Cambridge School in 1951, begining a journey from a small business school and making it into one of Boston's busiest 2-year colleges. Despite the name, the school was never located in Cambridge. It was in Copley Square for several years at the corner of Boylston and Exeter Streets across from the Boston Public Library. At the time there were two large statues of lions flanking the building entrance. These stone lions were adopted as the school's mascots and also gave name to the class yearbook. The building has since been demolished, but the lions themselves were relocated down the street to the entrance of the Fairmount Copely Plaza Hotel, where they were painted gold and can still be seen today. In 1964, Cambridge School was accredited as a Junior College of Business and it's student enrollment had increased to 750. The curriculum was expanded to include hotel/restaurant management, secretarial science and broadcast communications, thus the name of the school was modified to the "Cambridge School of Business and Broadcasting." That same year the school purchased a Kenmore Square office building at 632 Beacon Street and converted the premises for radio & television production studios. In 1965 the school began leasing dormitory space from the prestigious Hotel Kenmore located on the opposite side of Kenmore Square. The hotel owners were experiencing declining business and eventually decided to sell the building to the school outright. In 1966, Cambridge School purchased the Hotel Kenmore and Wadsworth annex. The Hotel's original "Beef 'N Bird" Restaurant retained it's name and decor and became the school cafeteria. The main Kenmore building became a girls dormitory and Wadsworth Hall the boys dormitory. In 1967, the school was renamed Grahm Junior College in honor of President Milton Grahm who had worked for years on the school's expansion. By 1968, at the height of the Vietnam war student enrollment was at an all time high with the Baby-Boomers hitting college age (and an increase in male students attending college for the purpose of getting a draft deferment). This required more dormitory space, so Grahm purchased the former Hotel Buckminster, one of the oldest and largest buildings in Kenmore Square. The new boys dormitory was renamed Leavitt Hall, after Grahm's mother and father-in-law. The college continued on through the sixties and into the seventies and retained a good reputation in the broadcasting industry. At it's peak enrollment there were over 1,300 students. Many national and local TV announcers, reporters, and radio personalities had Grahm Junior College on their resume. There were also hundreds of directors, engineers and writers who joined the production and technical end of broadcasting. By the late 70's however, a faltering economy and a declining enrollment with increasing debt and expenses forced the once prosperous school into bankruptcy. In 1979, Grahm Junior College graduated it's last class and closed it's doors forever.