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. In 1956 Nathan Levin died and Colonial Inv. Co. vice president Harry A. Badt took his place in the foreclosure paperwork. 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 51 Bates St NW:
- December 1950 (recorded Jan 26, 1951) Evans, Levin and Taube sold one-half of 51 Bates St NW to Louise V. Brown a widow, and Bertha E. Oliver, separated.
- December 1950 (recorded Jan 26, 1951) Brown and Oliver borrowed $2,900 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
- December 1950 (recorded Jan 26, 1951) Evans, Levin, and Taube sold the other half of 51 Bates St NW to Christine B. Gregg.
- Dec 1950 Gregg borrowed $2,900 from trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
- September 1961 Brown and Oliver were released from their mortgage.
- April 1962 Gregg was released from her mortgage.
- August 1972 Gregg (husband Jessie Charles Gregg mentioned but unsigned), Brown and Oliver sold 51 Bates to the DC Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) for $13,000.
- June 1980 (doc #8000020294) the DC RLA sold/transferred this and other properties to BSA Limited Partnership. BSA is possibly short for Bates Street Associates. It is paired with doc #8000020221 a contract between DC RLA and BSA Ltd Partnership.
No foreclosures. No known slum landlord. Original buyers were able to pay off the mortgages. This was a good story. However they did sell the property to DC RLA which makes me wonder if the properties were in bad shape.
According to a 1960 city directory Christine Bennett Gregg was a nurse living at 51 Bates Street NW. She could have been the same Christine Gregg in the 1950 living as a lodger with the Maynard family at 1443 Q St NW working house worker for a private family. She was 37, separated, and born in North Carolina. Her husband, and it looks like a case of abandonment, was a Pullman porter according to his WW2 Army Enlistment record. She retired as a licensed practical nurse. She died in 1993 in North Carolina.