Month: September 2023

Comparative White DC Home Owner- Georgetown- Charles A. Pendry- 3253 P St NW

Although the African American home owners of Truxton Circle are my focus, I am looking at a few other blocks in Washington, DC to compare them to. So I looked at the census for blocks in the city that were in the F1 or red-lined category, but happened to be 90%-100% white. I included Georgetown, and this is the story of one household.photo of property

I’m not sure why document # 192910230142 didn’t show up to document Charles A. and his wife Mabel V. Pendry’s purchase of 3253 P St NW from Emma and Henry Frain on September 17, 1929. They bought it and borrowed $2,700 from trustees Arthur G. Bishop and Arthur J. Bridgett. Then in 1933 the sold it back to Emma Frain. The end.

In the 1930 census Charles Augustus Pendry was a New York born engineer who worked for the federal government. He was previously married to an Ida Pendry who he divorced in 1924 after 31.5 years of marriage. But as we see above, by 1929 Pendry was married again to wife #2 Mabel Victorine. In the  1930 census, he was 59 years old, she 48. They lived with two lodgers Alexander P. Korman (20 yo) and Clarence Sterner (40 yo). He had no children.

By the 1940 census the couple had moved to G-d’s waiting room, aka Florida. They were renting, living as retirees in Tampa. Mabel died in 1949 and Charles passed in 1954.

WSIC-1950 Sell Off- 221 P Street NW

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.

221 P St NW. Taken 2004

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 what happens with 221 P St NW:

  • January 1951 Evans, Levin and Taube sold one-half of 221 P NW to Lent L. Hunter.
  • January 1951 Lent Hunter borrowed $3,250 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
  • June 1951 Evans, Levin, and Taube sold the other half of 221 P St NW to Catherine B. and Orville L. Jackson.
  • June 1951 the Jacksons borrowed $3,400 from trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
  • September 1955 Mr. Hunter lost his half to foreclosure. Evans, Levin and Taube regained the property via an auction.
  • June 1959 new partner Harry A. Badt, his wife, Taube. Evans, their wives, and Nathan Levin’s survivors sold their half of the property to Sophia and George Basiliko.
  • February 1964, the Jacksons borrowed $3,415 from United Mortgage Company Inc.
  • November 1966, the Jacksons were released from their June 1951 mortgage.
  • January 1975, George Basiliko sold the other half of the property to the Jacksons, thus bringing the property under the ownership of one household.

I’m going to end it there. Despite being sold as two halves, a foreclosure, and being sold to George Basiliko, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson managed to get the whole house. As far as I can tell the house remained in the Jackson family until 2001.