Sometimes the problem with catalog searches will point you in the direction of a haystack and say, ‘it’s over there.’ I plugged Eloyce Gist on the Library of Congress and got a big haystack. But then I looked back and found that it did pinpoint it to the image of hundreds.
Eloyce Gist attended the Bloomingdale function in 1952.
So while I do other things, like prepare for the presentation on former Truxton Circle filmmaker Eloyce Gist, on October 2nd, I’m fishing through my old posts.
September 26, 2005 I posted about a Washington City Paper article (link in post is dead) about Shiloh Baptist Church‘s opposition to a business across the street getting a liquor license. It could have been “Shaw’s Main Drag” by Arthur Delaney written September 23, 2005. Yes, 20 years ago, now making this about Shaw History. You whippersnappers have no idea how much fighting went into making Shaw what it is today.
Anyway, the business Shiloh was fighting was the Queen of Sheba Ethiopian restaurant. It appears that QoS has closed and has been replaced by the Silk Lounge. Eventually, QoS won and got its liquor license as reported in the 2007 WCP article Queen of Sheba Toasts End of Liquor License Battle.
I understand the issue with QoS as it was right across the street from the church’s entrance and was near the church’s child care center. But Shiloh also opposed the liquor license for an upscale and very nice vegan restaurant Vegetate up on the next block.
As I mentioned in a previous post this month, Shiloh fought against the development along 9th instead of leaning into it. I wonder if the church had figured out a way to remain true to its principles and partner with local business if the church would have been flourishing instead of floundering?
This isn’t from Flickr but my own old posts from September 24, 2004. I just posted a photo.
It’s simple street art/ graffiti on what I think is still an empty storefront. It’s near the Compass Coffee at 1023 7th St NW.
Everyso often I wander away from history and treat this as a personal blog. Sometimes I like to fight with strangers on the internet. There is a fool who believes that an increasing assessed value does not increase your taxes. As someone who has paid property taxes in 4 jurisdictions, and has looked at the tax assessment sent (trying to figure out how to argue against it), this was a lie.
I’ll touch on property taxes and I will attempt to throw in some history. Let’s go back to 2007. In my post Tax Assessments, I noted that DC was up to some assessment black magic, by inflating the land assessment compared to the structure (aka the house) on the property. To me, this appeared to be away for DC to squeeze more money out of the most run down houses in good/up & coming neighborhoods.
Prior to that, in 2005, it appeared that DC was just increasing the value of our homes by $60K for poops and giggles.
Lastly, in 2010 I wrote about how different neighbors on the block pay different taxes even if their properties are roughly assessed around the same amount. It depends on when they bought or got the property, if they are a resident owner, if they qualify for some sweet deal like the Senior Citizen Tax Relief and other factors.
When my spouse was a teen his parents (now both dead) got some friends to fake an address so he could go to another high school in the city where they lived. That was address fraud. The practice is sometimes called residency fraud, but since his parents were in City X, CA and paying City X property taxes, they were residents of City X, let’s go with address fraud.
I’m not going to write about Maryland residents sending their children to DC schools. That’s another rant for another day.
No instead of going back in forth with some stranger on X about property taxes and if they actually go up every year due to assessments, I’m going to create a post. Feel free to fight me.
I don’t blame my dead in-laws. They were paying taxes for all the schools in their city, regardless if they were using them. People without kids pay property taxes which may (depending on the jurisdiction) pay for schools in that jurisdiction. To my knowledge, people in Hillcrest are paying taxes that support schools in Foxhall.
I’m in PG County and my ginormous tax bill tells me how much is going to PG schools. Compared to what goes to parks and rec, not much. Parks and Recreation get over a thousand dollars of my tax bill whereas the schools get less than a couple hundred. I think I get my money’s worth. Got some nice bike trails that kinda go places I want to go and my kid’s in private school. Seriously, no one moves to PG for the schools. And 2K goes to never having guys on the corner selling heroin.
I have heard over and over property taxes are linked to the schools. As I wrote, a small portion goes to education and we’ve got an excellent elementary school. The high school sucks, but there is a nearby charter and another specialty high school up the road that works as an alternative. All for less than $200 a year in taxes.
My aunt lives down the road from me and pays less in property taxes for her condo. Because it is a condo, not a real house. Her tax dollars goes into the same PG Co. pot. I have no idea of the quality of her neighborhood school. It’s PG County, whaddya want?
I’ll end this here by saying. Urban and suburban schools can supported by different tax groups because they could be in different municipalities. Next time someone says the property taxes in one part of town supports the nice school but not the poor school in the poor part of town will need to show that the municipality doesn’t just throw all the tax money in one big pot.
HT to Shaw Rez for pointing this out on Redfin.
1530 9th St NW is for sale for a nice round $1 million dollars.
I occasionally listen to a podcast by an ADHD pastor of a dying California church. Recently on his podcast, he noted how dire the situation was (aging congregation, costs of operation, etc), went into some detail and said that some hard decisions had to be made. I thought of that when my aunt, a member of Shiloh Baptist, mentioned how things were there.
Shiloh’s 9th Street properties have been an albatross around their necks. Looking at some of my old photos, I came across one from 2018 advertising a concept Victory Village.
Well that didn’t work out. Going back to that podcast, in that situation the CA church had property that they ‘could’ develop themselves, but he pointed out they wouldn’t necessarily make good landlords. As a former landlady, landlording is a service that requires certain skills. Not everyone has those sets of skills. UHOP has those skills. Shiloh does not and has proven incapable over the past 30 years that I’ve been in the DC area.
Instead of leaning into what is going on in the neighborhood, Shiloh, for their own reasons, have pushed back. As a result, when the taxes become too much or too the property too burdensome scattered properties get sold. It was great when they sold properties to the National Park Service for the Carter G. Woodson house.
Shaw Rez pointed out that having the whole row of vacant properties would make a good development deal. The reasons why the church holds on to these vacant and crumbling properties would make such a deal unlikely.
Shiloh has to make some hard decisions as their congregation gets older and lives further away. Nobody likes hard decisions.
The National Archives Assembly, an organization of current and former NARA employees, is sponsoring this presentation on 10/2/25 at 1pm as part of their monthly meeting. Come in person or just view online (Google Meet) a presentation about former Truxton Circle resident, Eloyce Gist. She was a filmmaker in the early 1930s.
NAA Presentation-Eloyce Gist (PDF)
Many thanks to Scott Roberts who pointed out an error that has been corrected.
Hopefully this is the last post of this kind. This is just answering if the Bates Street Associates (BSA) ever owned the property?
37 Bates Street NW (Sq 615, lot 288) – Well, no. Basiliko sold the property to the Bates Street Partnership in 1978 (document # 7800034103). The Bates Street Partnership with George Diaz and Edward Kassoff as signatories, were not the same (as far as I can tell) as the Bates Street Associates.
60 Bates Street NW (Sq 615, lot 811)- Yes. While I cannot locate a deed transferring the property from Basiliko to the DC Redevelopment Agency (RLA), there is the deed and contract (docs #8000020294 and #8000020221) transferring it from the DC RLA to the BSA Limited Partnership.
227 Bates Street NW (Sq 552, lot 93)- Kinda hard to say….. I’m going to go with no. There is a confusing document (# 8000014566) that is a mortgage release for the Bates Street Associates, Inc, but it was owned by Maude and Farin Boykin.
229 Bates Street NW (Sq 552, lot 94)- Yes. Like 60 Bates St NW the property from Basiliko to the DC RLA, followed by a deed and contract (docs #7900028039 and #7800024140) transferring it from the DC RLA to the BSA Inc.
Nope we’re not done with the WSIC. There are plenty of stories to milk out of of the WSIC saga and this is one.
Typically, if the buyer paid off the loan it would take about 10 years to do so. The buyers at 42 O Street NW faltered so close to the finish line. The first foreclosure for this house came in 1959. The second was from a family who bought the house in February 1951 losing the house to foreclosure in April 1960, about a year or so away from being released from their mortgage.
That last family was Mrs. Mildred Stitt and her parents William and Eva Hall. The 1950 census showed that the Halls lived at 42 O Street NW before the WSIC sell off. Since Colonial Investments was selling units exclusively to African American buyers, the Halls had options the White tenants did not. The WSIC rentals on the unit block of O St were for Black renters and the rest were for White renters.
When they bought the downstairs half of 42 O Street William was about 75 years old and his wife 70. Mildred is a bit harder to pin down. She married James Samuel Stitt in 1938 in Arlington , VA and I can’t seem to find them living in the same house. She wasn’t at 42 O St NW in 1950, but she was on the 1951 deed.
William died July 13, 1955. Eva followed later in 1960 and that gives a clue as to why their unit fell into foreclosure.
They had three daughters, one being Mildred Stitt. I have my doubts that Mildred ever lived with them. Once Eva died there may have been no reason to keep paying mortgage payments. But they were so close to the end.
I have no idea what Mildred was doing during the period of her parents’ deaths. It seems that she was separated from James S. Stitt. There was another James S. Stitt, could have been the same one, who married an Anne Hall and lived in Mecklenberg, NC. But I know she eventually moved to 3827 Hamilton St in Hyattsville and lived there. She died August 15, 1998.
Yes, another filler post. This is just answering the question were these properties ever under the control of the Bates Street Associates (BSA)?
1529 3rd St NW (lot 49)- No. I gather Basiliko missed the prime window to off load properties to the DC Redevelopment Agency (RLA).
1533 3rd St NW (lot 51)- Yes. The property went from Basiliko to the DC RLA (doc #1970011877), then from the DC RLA to BSA Limited Partnership with a deed (doc #8000020294) and a contract ( doc #8000020221).
1541 3rd St NW (lot 55)- No.
1545 3rd St NW (lot 57)- Yes. Same story as 1533 3rd St it went from Basiliko, to DC RLA then to BSA with all the same documents.
