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). 
Let’s see what happens with 129 Bates St NW:
Well. When I look at lot 822 I don’t see anything that goes back to the 1950s. When I look at a 1919 map and see that it is lot 803. I don’t see anything past 1931.
The name associated with the property in 1931 are Beatrice W. and Leon S. Oppenheimer and Elmer B. Young. They sold it to General Realties Inc. And they sold it to the Washington Loan and Trust Company on behalf of the Washington Sanitary Improvement Company (WSIC). WSIC then sold to Evans, Levin and Taube.
I see sales of 1/4 of lots 819 and 820, which is lot 805, now 822. But I can’t narrow So let’s go backwards. Start with lot 822 and trace it to Delores S. McDaniels who was the first person to own lot 822 in the system. Her ownership ranges from 1981-2006 and the records show lots 25, 820, and 822. In 1981 she got the property from the Bates Street Associates Limited Partnership. That hints that it may have been owned by slum landlord George Basiliko and maybe the DC RLA.
So let’s look back at lots 819 and 820. A 1971 condemnation order has those combined lots for 129 Bates St NW. The problem I have associating those combined lots with 129 Bates is that I see 1/4th portions, which makes sense for 125 Bates Street which is currently the four unit Truxton Condominium. Also 125 Bates is in the right spot, west of 123 Bates which is lot 818.
The titles are too messy for me to do a decent tracking for this address. I give up.