Yeah. We’re having a snow day today and tomorrow.
Memory Lane: Lots of Snow
Author: Mari
Black Home Owners of Truxton Circle: Helen and Nathaniel Lee- 135 Bates St NW
I’m looking at some of the foreclosure victims of the WSIC house sales and this post features Helen M. and Nathaniel Lee who purchased half of 135 Bates St NW.
December 1950 Evans, Levin and Taube sold half of 135 Bates St NW to Helen M. and Nathaniel Lee. They borrowed $2,525 from Colonial Mortgage Corp. trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman. Then in August 1954 they lost the home to foreclosure.
The Lees’ lived at 1613 10th St NW in 1950 before buying part of 135 Bates. That house no longer exists. Nathaniel lived there with his wife, Helen, and their four children (under 5 years old), his sister in law and four lodgers. Nathaniel worked as an awning repair man.
Nathaniel was born January 19, 1923/1924/1925 (the year varies with source material) in Raeford, North Carolina to Ruby Morris and Tom Lee. His father, a farmer, died in April 1931. When he was a teenager in 1940 he lived with his aunt and uncle and a whole mess of other relatives in Raeford, working as a farm hand.
In 1945 Nathaniel married Helen Delouse Moore in Washington, DC. During the Korean War draft he was working as a machinist for the awning company.
After the foreclosure it does not appear that the Lees purchased a home in DC. But from Nathaniel’s December 1985 obituary, it appears the family mostly relocated to Paterson, NJ in 1962 where he ran Lee’s Market in addition to other work. He was survived by four sons and two daughters, his mother, many grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A few words of Martin Luther King regarding Shaw- 2026 Repost
This is a repost of an earlier post for Martin Luther King Day.
I have been looking for a speech I had of Martin Luther King’s made on March 13, 1967 for Model Inner City Community Organization (MICCO). Because the King Center is famous for cracking down on what they believe to be their copyright, I did not post the whole speech.
Back in 2008, I posted portions of the speech. I’ll repost it here.
Of course, we all recognize that if we are ultimately to improve psychological and physical conditions for minorities there must be total elimination of ghettoes and the establishment of a truly integrated society. In the meantime, however, all those working for economic and social justice are forced to address themselves to interim programs which, while not totally changing the situation, will nevertheless bring about improvement in the lives of those forced to live in ghettoes. And so, whiel [sic] many of those steps may lead to limited integration, those which do not must clearly be seen as interim steps until the objective situation makes a more fundamental approach.
and later
… Labor, Housing and the Office of Economic Opportunity, ought to work with the people of Shaw in developing, coordinating and concentrating their various programs upon social and economic problems of this area.
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking at a March 13, 1967 rally for Shaw
Dr. King has become an avatar, where people have projected on their own visions of what he’s supposed to be and ignoring who he actually was. Maybe some organization’s crackdown on other’s printing his words played a part in that. Dr. King preached integration but it seems so many now are pushing for segregation and celebrating the ghetto that King wanted to eliminate.
Memory Lane: Front yard tent
I went on Google Street View to figure out which block this photo below came from.
The purple townhouse in the middle now has a popup extra floor and a rooftop deck.
Google Street View allows you to look at earlier dates, so I went back to 2011, when 1609 had the outdoor tent and showed several men socializing under it. The neighbors at the purple house were doing the same, under their own tent.
Memory Lane: Sursum Corda and Church Housing
Because Destructo (my 8 year old son) is who he is, we were heading to the Kaiser Urgent Care Center near Union Station. They had a 2 hour wait as opposed to the 5 hour wait at the Largo UCC. This had us driving from Rhode Island and up 1st, past what was the Sursum Corda Apartments.
In my previous post about churches and housing, I mentioned Immaculate Conception Apartments, now 1330. In the 1970s it seems all the cool churches were doing low income housing. Sursum Corda, based on my quick glance of a June 25, 1972 Washington Post article was the product of St. Aloysius, its school Gonzaga High School, and other Catholic groups who like Immaculate, created an organization to create the housing.
I had to giggle when reading, “Mrs. Brown said crime has gone down markedly since the early days of the project.” When I arrived in the Shaw neighborhood, Sursum Corda was famously crime ridden.
But it was also painful reading the hope in 1972 that the apartment complex would be a new start for residents, providing a better life than what was offered in city public housing. Good intentions do not produce the results desired. Fast forward fifty years and what do you have? Apartment buildings completely divorced from the faith based communities that created them, struggling with crime. Or complexes that are no longer 100% low-income housing, but more market rate with a few subsidized units.
Know your public housing-2026
Ten years ago, on this date, I published a post, Know your public housing. Basically, what is affordable housing isn’t public housing. People might be using ‘public housing’ as shorthand, but it is incorrect.
Local governments are moving away from the public housing model and towards vouchers, aka Section 8. It’s easier to boss around landlords than to deal with property management yourself.
There are plenty of places within the historic boundaries of Shaw that are mistaken for public housing that is not public housing or no longer public housing. What is public housing? That’s housing “owned and managed by the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA).” And what is currently owned by the city in Shaw and other neighborhoods, compared to the number of privately owned apartments is minuscule.
I’ve gone down the list of DC public housing and only the James Apartments at 1425 N St NW, and possibly Claridge Towers at 1221 M St NW (it’s on the boundary) and Horizon House are the only public housing apartments in & on the border with Shaw.
The Northwest Co-Ops 1 and 2, not public housing.
Asbury Dwellings on Rhode Island, not public housing.
1330 at 1330 7th St NW, formerly Immaculate Conception Apartments, not public housing.
The McCollough Terrace Apartments, strangely some of the few non-Suzane Reatig designed UHOP buildings in Shaw, obviously not public housing.
The Washington Apartments, not public housing. I’m not even sure it’s still taking voucher tenants in 2026.
Foster House, formerly affordable housing associated with New Bethel Church, and there was a settlement, not public housing.
The Gibson Apartments, not public housing.
So lesson learned. When there is talk of affordable or workforce housing at your community meetings, it’s the examples I’ve provided above, the “not public housing.” Also affordable housing isn’t forever. The thing with vouchers, is that a company or property management group can choose to pivot towards market rate housing.
Churches and Affordable Housing: General thoughts
A couple of things passed through my social media on the topic of churches, or a particular church, getting into the affordable housing game. In one case, there is a church dealing with financial and membership woes throwing out the idea that maybe they could turn some of their prime urban acreage into housing. In another, some urban policy writer pointing out a plan by a progressive church to build affordable housing over their worship space and suggesting other churches do likewise.
My attitude, I’m not a member, so you do you, but be aware of the long term by learning from history. Who am I kidding? No one learns from history, because “this time, it’s different!”
If anyone is interested in learning from history, the Shaw neighborhood has several examples. Not a Shaw church but Greater Deliverance Christian Center Church of God in Christ formerly of SE DC owned Kelsey Gardens, an affordable housing complex, which was torn down for mixed use development between 2004-2006. Shiloh Baptist has owned and still owns property for well over 30 years and has done little in development. Immaculate Conception Church had used its Shaw properties to create the apartments at 1330 7th St NW in the 1970s? I believe Mt. Sinai has used its property as part of its mission work, if and when the properties have been used as housing, but not rentals. And lastly, the United House of Prayer for All Peoples (UHOP) is a major landlord and developer.
Just thinking of the examples, it’s complicated. And the outcomes, when thinking 20-30 years out don’t always match the rosy fuzzy picture painted in the planning stages. No one says, ‘hey let’s build some housing that we won’t manage and will add to the neighborhood’s crime problem!’ Or ‘let’s keep planning to build housing, but for one reason or another never ever get around to it and be forced to sell because maintaining shells is hurting our church budget.’ They might quietly say, ‘let’s build housing and have it as an extra revenue stream,’ which doesn’t work out for everyone.
Black Homeowners of TC- Frank and Earlene H. Fowler -131 Bates Street NW
I already did the foreclosure story and now I am looking at the other owners, who did not face foreclosure, Frank and Earlene H. Fowler of 131 Bates Street NW.
I’m going to start with Earlene. She was born Agnes Earline Hailstork November 4, 1915 in Virginia. Her mother was an 18 year old housekeeper and her father unknown. In 1946 she married Frank Fowler. In the 1950 census she worked as a clerical worker for the V.A. and lived with her husband Frank, a laborer, and their 3 sons, all under the age of 3 on the 2100 block of 18th St NW.
There was another Black Frank Fowler in the area, and I don’t trust the family tree, so this is the end. I will say one of their sons, Larry, kept close.
Memory Lane: Christmas In A Small House
When we decided to sell our house we rented another house on the block. So when Christmas came around we were in the rental. A very small rental. Smaller than our old house, which was on the same street, similar style, but split into two units.
Was there room for a tree? The previous owners I think had room for a tree. Didn’t matter. Half of our stuff was in a storage locker, where storing as much stuff as possible was primary and the ability to retrieve anything was impossible.
So we had a felt Christmas tree on a wall. It was an enjoyable Christmas.
This year we had a tabletop tree because I threatened that if someone kept jumping on the couch we weren’t getting a full sized tree. It was a good Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to You
Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas (Happy Chanukah) and Happy New Year.