This is an update of a previous post.
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 137 Bates’ property history:
- January 1951 Evans, Levin and Taube sold the whole of 137 Bates St NW to two couples, George A. and his wife Gladys L. Watson, along with Clayton and wife Lizzie M. Williams.
- January 1951 the Watsons and the Williams borrowed $5,050 from the Colonial Inv. Co’s preferred lenders, trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
- February 1963 the Watsons and the Williams were released from their mortgage.
- August 1963, through an intermediaries Barbara and Robert Drake, the Watsons and the Williams placed the property solely in the Williams’ name.
- March 1964 the Williams borrowed $5,000 from Republic Savings & Loan, later the Home Federal Savings & Loan Association.
- June 1981 Mrs. Williams borrowed $20,000 from what appears to be the DC Department of Housing & Community Development.
- November 1981 the Williams were released from their 1964 mortgage.
- May 2018 the estate of Lizzie Mae Williams, being that she died July 13, 1997 and Clayton died July 25, 1971, sold by the Estate of Diane Alexander, which was represented by Alisia Alexander sold 137 Bates to Leben Holdings LLC for $805,500.
For information about the Watsons and the Williams, see the earlier post. But this transaction seemed to work for everyone. There were no foreclosures and the property stayed in the hands of one of the families (I could not find a connection between the Watsons & Williams).