The Washington Sanitary Improvement Company (WSIC) was a late 19th century charitable capitalism experiment that ended in the 1950s. This blog started looking at the homes that were supposed to be sold to African American home buyers, after decades of mainly renting to white tenants.
Looking at WSIC properties they tend to have a pattern where the properties were sold to a three business partners, Nathaniel J. Taube, Nathan Levin and James B. Evans as the Colonial Investment Co. for $3 million dollars. Those partners sold to African American buyers. There was usually a foreclosure. Then the property wound up in the hands of George Basiliko and or the DC Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA). Then there was the odd lucky ones who managed to avoid that fate.
Let’s see the ownership history of 1533 3rd St NW:
- December 1950 (recorded Jan 18, 1951) Evans, Levin and Taube sold 1533 3rd St NW to Nettie B. Madden, a widow.
- December 1950 (recorded Jan 18, 1951) Madden borrowed $6,750 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
- September 1961 Madden borrowed $1,250 from trustees Leonard C. Collins and Thomas B. Lawrence.
- December 1965 Madden was released from her debt to Levin and Weightman.
- In October 1968, Madden’s survivors, Catherine M. Gainey, her husband Jerome Gainey, Dorothy M. Campbell and her husband William B. Campbell, sold 1533 3rd St NW to George Basiliko.
- July 1970 Basiliko sold 1533 to the DC Redevelopment Land Agency.
- July 1974 The DC Board for the Condemnation of Insanitary Buildings condemned the property.
At first it looked like Mrs. Madden would save 1533 3rd St NW from the fate of so many other former WSIC homes. But alas, no. Her daughters Catherine and Dorothy sold it to landlord George Basiliko, who within a few years, sold it to RLA.