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 were the odd lucky ones who managed to avoid that fate.
Let’s see what happens with 203 Bates St NW:
- December 1950 (recorded Jan 18, 1951) Evans, Levin and Taube sold half of 203 Bates Street NW to Pearl I. and Samuel B. Pryor.
- December 1950 (recorded Jan 18, 1951) the borrowed $2,525 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
- December 1950 (recorded Jan 18, 1951) Evans, Levin and Taube sold the other half to Louise and Leroy Winters.
- Dec 1950 the Winters borrowed $2,525 from Levin and Weightman.
- May 1954 the Pryors sold their half back to Evans, Levin and Taube and were released from their mortgage a month later.
- September 1954 the Winters sold their half back to Evans. Levin and Taube and were released from their mortgage March 1959.
- March 1959 Evans, Taube, the survivors of Nathan Levin and their spouses sold the property, along with several others, to Sophia and George Basiliko.
- July 1970 (doc# 1970011877) Basiliko, as part of a large package, sold 203 Bates and many other properties to the DC Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA).
- Probably in 1979 or 1980 (no document located) the DC RLA sold or transferred the property to the Bates Street Associates, Inc (BSA).
- April 1982 the BSA sold or transferred the property back to the government of the District of Columbia.
I do wonder what were the circumstances that had the buyers selling the property back to the Colonial Investment Company. This fits the later part of the pattern, minus the foreclosures, we have the property going to the Basilikos who then sell it to the city who then pass it on to the BSA.