Mari – Page 22 – Truxton Is In Shaw

Thoughts on small houses and their design

I’ve been clearing out the draft folder. This one is from April 4, 2009. I’ll add my thoughts at the end.

I spent months giving thought to how I wanted to redesign my roughly 1000sq ft (not counting cellar) house. I radically changed the second floor layout, moving the bathroom and making one bedroom a really big closet… with a bed. So when I see other small houses and it appears that was designed poorly, I wonder if they took into consideration the small space or just thought they could just reduce the measurements, squeeze stuff in and it would be alright.

Here are a few thoughts-
Can it get through the door/up the stairs. This was a very important question in the early years of my house. Because of some stupid pipe near the front door, it didn’t open all the way. I nearly had to throw out the comfy chair because said chair barely made it though the door and took some wall with it. The fridge required taking the door off the hinges and lifting it through a couple of passageways. It would have been easier if they took it through the back door on the alley side but the delivery guys weren’t going to even entertain that thought. Then there is the issue of never being able to have a double bed box spring, unless I was planning on sleeping in the living room. There are corners to turn and tight spots and if what you’re hauling to the 2nd or 3rd floor is big there is a chance it’s staying in the living room too. I considered space and movement issues. The doorway is still small but there are no stairs to hit nor a wall to gouge if bringing in a couch. The ceiling heights and lack of obstructions on the 2nd floor now allow for a large mattress or other furniture, as long as it can get up the stairs.

A size 12 in size 8 clothing. There are things that just overpower a space. Like a huge sink in a 1/2 bath, that takes up half of the bathroom. And that just draws attention to the fact that it is a small space. There is the mid-sized bathroom with a big jacuzzi tub shoehorned in.

[July 2023 thoughts]

I oversaw 4 rehab projects on my old DC home before selling it in 2020. The first was in 2003/2004 to update the kitchen where I had 1 foot of counter space. The second was the big project where the 1st and 2nd floors were gutted. The third was finishing the basement. The last one was in 2015 when we added an addition above the kitchen. All this changed my dumpy 1000 sq ft home to a nice little 1700 sq. ft home. All the renovations and work put into it was about $300K.

There are drawbacks to open floor plans. Sound and smell. But you don’t have to worry about getting large things from one room to another. The stairs were still tight, but not as tight as before. We had a huge dresser at the top of the stairs which required large men with upper body strength to move over the banister, but there was more room.

Home and garden

The post below was for February 5, 2009. I’m going through my unpublished drafts and deleting several and publishing others. I’m only publishing this because I have fond memories of my small garden as I now deal with the challenges of a suburban garden.

It’s been horribly cold so the only thing I’ve been doing with my yard is look at it. I may occasionally pick up the trash that blows in.

I’m not as excited as I was last year about the yard. I am planning to do something new. The current yard is suffering from too much traffic, too little space. I park the bike on one end of the yard, causing me to trample on some things that don’t like being trampled on, arugula. So amazingly the most of the arugula that has managed to survive winter is the stuff in my way, so it is looking ratty and unappetizing. Late in the season I planted some plants that I should probably move. They too are in the way of things I need to get to. So the trick will be trying to get the front yard and the bike to live in harmony, without anything I may want to eat underfoot. Or undertire.

The untrampled arugula is small and for a while was getting eaten by some odd beetle looking bug. So its leaves are a bit ugly too.

I’m going to have to use more pots for the front yard. Why? Cats. The furry little bastards have been occasionally using the yard as a toilet. Also the company I use to control rodents have thrown in the added service of spraying. I was told the spray is for the house surface (stairs and doorways) and the ground next to the house. I could cancel the service and risk a return of mice or put my garden high above the spray and in pots.

Piecing Together Lost Truxton Circle or What the what am I looking at? Pt 5

In the previous postings for parts 1-4 we looked at buildings south and north of the Dunbar High School field in 1942. Now let’s look west.

Just to orient you, here is a USGS aerial map from 1951.

And now a look on the west (left) end of the field.

Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information photograph collection (Library of Congress), ca 1942

Those buildings no longer exist. It is now just part of the Dunbar track. I wonder it that taller 3 story detached building was the old Twinings school?

Memory Lane: Dunbar

Dunbar High School taken December 20, 2005

It was an ugly building.

It looked like a prison.

I’m glad it is gone.

Piecing Together Lost Truxton Circle or What the what am I looking at? Pt 4

This is more of a continuation of part 3.

Untitled photo, possibly related to: Washington, D.C. Military unit in Armstrong Technical High School which is trained by the regular Army, a tradition in all Washington schools. Library of Congress. 1942.

We are looking north from the Dunbar High School field. We see the bleachers. We do not see Armstrong in the background which means we see more buildings that no longer exist on the 200 block of O St NW.

Below, more of the same.

Swinging to the other end of the bleachers looking along O Street, we see another part of the field with female Dunbar students.

Review girl cadets at Dunbar High School. 1942.

Here we clearly see Armstrong High School in the background.

Piecing Together Lost Truxton Circle or What the what am I looking at? Pt 3

In part 3 we look on the other side of the Dunbar High School fields in 1942, towards the bleachers.

In the above 1951 aerial of the neighborhood, find Dunbar and its field with what looks like tennis courts in the lower right hand corner of the campus. Now on the opposite side of the field see a long light colored or white stretch of something, those are the bleachers.

Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information photograph collection (Library of Congress)

In the background you can see Armstrong Technical High School and a little corner of old Dunbar High School.

Washington D.C. Military unit in Armstrong Technical High School being trained by an U.S. Army lieutenant. Library of Congress. C. 1942

In the above photograph, we see more of Armstrong on the 100-200 block of O Street NW.

WSIC-1950 Sell Off- 208 Bates Street NW

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. photo of property

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 208 Bates St NW:

January 1951 Evans, Levin and Taube sold all of 208 Bates Street NW to Mrs. Lucy P. Gibson.
January 1951 Mrs. Gibson borrowed $5,800 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
January 1961 Mrs. Gibson lost her home to foreclosure. Due to an auction the ownership returned to Colonial Investment Co partners Evans, Taube and new partner Harry A. Badt.
November 1961, as part of a larger property sale, Badt, Evans, Taube, Nathan Levin’s survivors, and their spouses sold 208 Bates Street NW to Sophia and George Basiliko.
July 1968 the Basilikos sold 208 Bates Street NW to the Urban Rehabilitation Corporation.

This was a quick one. Not too long after the foreclosure, the Basilikos took ownership. I can’t seem to find info about Mrs. Gibson so I can’t say what happened on her end. This differs from the usual story in that the DC Redevelopment Land Agency was not involved.

Piecing Together Lost Truxton Circle or What the what am I looking at? Pt 2

Continuing on from Part 1….

Look at this photo taken in 1942.

Military unit in Armstrong Technical High School being trained by an U.S. Army lieutenant. Library of Congress.

Now same day in March 1942, same event.

Washington, D.C. Military unit in Armstrong Technical High School being trained by a U.S. Army lieutenant. LOC

Behind them appears to be the National Homeopathic Hospital. Below is a photo of the hospital from 1910.

You can see the front of the hospital in the top photograph. In the second photo you can see part of the old Dunbar High School building. Despite it being an event for Armstrong High School boys, it appears they are on Dunbar’s campus.

Below is an aerial photo from 1951 or 1952 taken by the US Geological Survey. Keeping in mind where the two tallish buildings of the hospital sat, and the corner of old Dunbar, you can see where the boys were parading.

WSIC-1950 Sell Off- 215 P Street NW

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 was the odd lucky ones who managed to avoid that fate.

Let’s see what happens with 215 P St NW:

December 1950 (recorded Jan 18, 1951) Evans, Levin and Taube sold one-half of 215 P NW to Sudell M. and Walter Williams.
December 1950 (recorded Jan 18, 1951) the Williams borrowed $3,000 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
January 1951 Evans, Levin, and Taube sold the other half of 215 P St NW to James J. and Lucille T. Meredith.
Jan 1951 the Merediths borrowed $3,150 from trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
November 1953 the Merediths sold their half to the Williams.
May 1966 the Williams borrowed $9,000 at 6.5% interest from the Suburbia Federal Savings and Loan Association.
August 1966 it appears that the Williams were released from the Levin and Weightman mortgages that they and the Saunders took on in 1950.
October 1968 the Williams lost their home to foreclosure and via an auction the mortgager Suburbia Federal Savings and Loan owned it.
November 1968, Dorothy C. and Elvin L. Brincefield bought the property borrowing $7,920 from Suburbia Federal Savings and Loan.
December 1968, as the Brincefield Company they loaned/borrowed?? I don’t understand the document.
November 1971, the Brincefields sold the property to the DC Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA).

The lesson learned here is that if your foreclosure is with someone other than the Colonial Investment Co. partners, then it does not fall into the hands of George Basiliko. But it wound up being owned by the DC RLA.

The Merediths had a not so common name so I will look into their history. In the 1950 census James Junior Meredith was an African American truck driver living at 1115 8th St in an apartment with his wife Lucille, a maid, their 1 year old daughter Carolyn and his mother in law. August 23, 1960 James died. They were living at 208 Bates Street at the time of his death, as renters. I’ll give my regular readers 1 guess at who their slumlord was. He left behind his wife Lucille, and children Carolyn, Kenneth and Patricia.

The Williams were so close to beating the normal fate. Unfortunately, Williams is too common of a name to research. Yes, Sudell is an uncommon first name, but her maiden name was Sudell Myrtle Jones.

Piecing Together Lost Truxton Circle or What the what am I looking at? Pt 1

I’ve been looking at the Library of Congress’ photo collection online for Truxton Circle related images. I found a slew of Armstrong High School photos, and some Dunbar High School images, some of them outside. Looking at them I noticed buildings in the background that no longer exist and tried to figure out where the photos were looking.

The LC photos were from March 1942. Below is an aerial photo from 1951 or 1952 taken by the US Geological Survey.

Armstrong as a building still exists.

Dunbar exists, but not the original building. The 3rd building for Dunbar High School exists on that block.

The Homeopathic Hospital no longer exists either.

A lot of buildings shown in the above aerial photo no longer exist. Currently there are no buildings on the east side and southwest side of Armstrong, as there were in the 1951 photo. Dunbar now takes up the whole block but in 1951 had structures on its western side. The Homeopathic Hospital got absorbed by the New York Avenue playground.

In later posts I will compare the 1942 photos to the 1951 aerial photo and try to match up the buildings or structures.