DONALD RYDER

RYDER--Donald "Don" Porter. Award-winning architect, educator, and resident of New Rochelle, NY, passed away February 17, 2021 at the age of 94. Don was born in Springfield, OH, the second of three children of Earl Ryder and Emma Marie Belsinger. Upon the death of his mother, Marie, in 1936, Don's father later married his stepmother, Miriam Curtis Ryder, who reared the children into adulthood in Dayton, OH. Don graduated from University of Illinois in 1951 with a bachelor's degree in architecture. In 1957, he married Shauneille Gantt Perry in Chicago, where he was employed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill until the couple moved to New York City in 1959. Don worked at several architectural firms on projects including the design of Lincoln Center and served as Director of Campus Planning for the Borough of Manhattan Community College before founding the architectural design firm Bond Ryder & Associates with the late J. Max Bond, Jr. in 1968. Its notable projects include the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Studio Museum in Harlem, Lionel Hampton Houses and the Frederick Douglass Houses in Manhattan. Other works of note are the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, AL and Towers on the Park Apartments in New York City. Bond Ryder & Associates won awards for its work on the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, which includes a crypt for Dr. King. Don was also an educator in parallel with his practice, first teaching as a lecturer at The City College of New York in 1972. After 21 years, Bond Ryder & Associates merged with Davis, Brody & Associates, and Don retired from full time practice for a career as a professor and department chair of the School of Architecture at The City College of New York until retiring in 2001. In 1984, Don was awarded a fellowship in the American Institute of Architects and also served two terms on the New York State Board for Architecture. He was a registered architect in New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut, and a member of the New York Association of Architects and the National Organization of Black Architects. Don was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi and the Grand Boule of the Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity of NYC. In 2015, he was awarded the Vertner W. Tandy Trailblazers Award for Housing and Economic Development for his many professional and civic accomplishments by the Office of the Westchester County Executive, the County Board of Legislators and its African American Advisory Board. Don enjoyed traveling, home improvement, and was also a talented sketch artist and painter, animal lover and astronomy buff. He is survived by his wife of 63 1/2 years, Shauneille; daughters Lorraine Ryder (Studio City, CA); Natalie Redcross, PhD, and her husband Ken Redcross, MD, (New Rochelle, NY); Gail Tigere, PhD, and her husband Tafara Tigere (New Rochelle); sister Bernadine Ryder Matthews (Gibsland, LA); grandchildren Evan, Sophia, Shaunelle and Paul; nieces Beverly, Gwendolyn, and Deanne; nephews Dwayne, Darryl, and Jack and many grandnieces and grandnephews. Don's brother, Bob Ryder, passed away in 2007 and his sister-in-law Patricia Ryder in 2020.