Buildings – Page 2 – Truxton Is In Shaw

Black History Month 2024: First Class- Ch. 12 New School

This year for Black History Month we’ll review chapter by chapter Alison Stewart’s First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America’s First Black Public High School. This is more Truxton Circle related then this blog’s previous annual looks at Shaw resident and founder of Negro History Week (later Black history month) Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s Mis-Education of the Negro. As Dunbar High School is located in Truxton Circle currently taking up all of Square 554.

This chapter starts with the 1968 riots which pretty much destroyed much of 9th and 7th Street in Shaw. Yes, other neighborhoods experienced damage too, but we’re focusing on Shaw. The damage lasted 30 years. Whatever plans for the Shaw School Urban Renewal Area took on a new spirit after the riots and redoing Dunbar was part of it.

There were pre-riot plans for the Dunbar facility. There was a modernization plan to make it larger than Eastern High School. After the riot the School Board decided the building needed to be torn down.

As the 1970s approach Dunbar was a completely different school. Gone were the high standards and expectations of earlier years. There was a mix and range of students. And there were drug dealers around the neighborhood.

This chapter gives some detail about the prison like structure that loomed on Square 554 for 30 years. The new Dunbar Senior High School would be modern. It had open classrooms. I’m sure that idea looked great on paper.

Of course Dunbar alumni fought the good fight and tried to save the original 1916 building. Senator Brooke (mentioned in the previous chapter) lent his support for saving the old building. Apparently the building was recognized as an historic landmark. The alumni even took the city to court in 1977. June 2, 1977 the city began to knock down the old Dunbar building.

Black History Month meet Memory Lane: Carter G. Woodson’s House

Looking at some of the photographs I’ve taken I get to go down memory lane. Since it is Black History Month, let’s look at the father of Black History, Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s house at 1538 9th St NW. But let’s look at it in February 2014. A decade ago.

At the time it didn’t seem the National Park Service was going to do anything with this property or the adjoining properties it owned. I also vaguely remember the NPS was trying to take over a private home on the corner that is now a restaurant.

It had been this way for a while.

Memory Lane: Watha Daniels Shaw Library

This photo was taken back in February 2010 of the construction that was to be the Shaw library at Rhode Island Ave and 7th St NW.

Memory Lane: 1500 Block of 1st St NW January 5, 2008

When I took this photo back in 2008 I did not know that the corner house had history. That it was the home of the notable Pocahontas Pope.

Taken Jan. 5, 2008. 1500 block of 1st St NW.

So much has changed since then. It’s been renovated and now I am more familiar with it’s notable former resident.

It was on the market last year, but I see the listing was removed. Well, better luck in 2024!

Memory Lane: December 26, 2005 1600 Blk of 4th St NW

Taken December 26, 2005. View of 300 Block of Q St NW from 1600 blk of 4th.

Happy Boxing Day.

A quick look at this photo taken in 2005 shows the block before the Fourth St Friendship Seventh Day Adventist church built their modern wing. It appears ground had been broken and fencing was up.

Memory Lane: Billboards on New Jersey Ave

If you look where the condos at P and 4th/New Jersey NW are, there are two highway billboards. I believe one is advertising the movie Tinker Bell.

When I look back at the post Oh what could have been- a plan to destroy the TC and the map of the plan to have a multilane highway through Truxton Circle. I wonder if the billboards were placed there to take advantage of commuter traffic?

WSIC-1950 Sell Off- 124 Q 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.

I should note this property is both lots 812 and 213.

Let’s see what happens with 124 Q St NW:

March 1951 (recorded April 1951) Evans, Levin and Taube sold one-fourth of 124 Q NW to Leon and Minnie Broadus.
March 1951 (recorded April 1951) Mr. and Mrs. Broadus borrowed $4,200 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
March 1951 Evans, Levin, and Taube sold the one-fourth of 124 Q St NW to Miss. Elizabeth Williams.
March 1951 Williams borrowed $4,250 from trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
March 1951 Evans, Levin, and Taube sold the one-fourth of 124 Q St NW to George M. and Shirley A. Yates.
March 1951 the Yates borrowed $4,200 from trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
May 1951 Evans, Levin, and Taube sold the one-fourth of 124 Q St NW to Burton S. and Mattie L. Smith.
May 1951 the Smiths borrowed $4,200 from trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
May 1954 the Yates were the first to lose their apartment to foreclosure and via an auction it returned to the ownership of Evans, Levin and Taube.
September 1954 Miss Williams was the next to lose her apartment to foreclosure and it returned to the ownership of Evans, Levin and Taube through an auction.
March 1955 the Smiths were the 3rd household to lose their apartment to foreclosure and it returned to the ownership of Evans, Levin and Taube through an auction.
October 1963 Mr. and Mrs. Broadus managed to be released from their mortgage.
May 1972, Evans, Taube, the survivors of Nathan Levin, their spouses and Leon and Minnie Broadus together sold the 4 unit 124 Q St NW to the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA).
June 1980, as part of a large property package, the DC RLA sold/transferred 124 Q St NW to the BSA (Bates Street Assoc.) Limited Partnership.

This is an interesting property, because it was a 4 unit flat and 3 of the 4 original buyers lost ownership to foreclosure. I am surprised the 3 foreclosed units didn’t go to a certain slumlord. Instead, all parties sold the property to DC RLA. The other interesting thing was the price charged for one unit in this building. Most people buying WSIC units paid less than $3,700 in a two-unit building. These people were paying more to share the building with more people. I wonder what the deal was with that.

Armstrong Became A Functional School Again

Earlier I looked at Langston which, as far I know, is still a husk of a building. Langston was a school where African American children learned and played. But despite being on the Register of Historic Places, it is still a decaying structure. Armstrong was also on the Register and it was delivered back to the land of the living and in the 2023-2024 school year be a place where African American children learn and play.

Armstrong Manual Training School. Under renovation. Taken October 14, 2007

The school underwent renovation in 2007 to turn it into a charter school. The man heading up the effort was Kent Amos, who is still alive. He was operating a profitable looking non-profit and was able to funnel about $24 million dollars into turning a decaying building to transform it into a functioning school.

Armstrong Technical High School Ruins — Armstrong HS, view from P and 1st St NW taken 6/26/2007

In 2009 neighbors complained that the CAPCS charter school was renting out the building to the Metropolitan Baptist Church and turning the field on 1st Street NW into a parking lot. Yes, that parking lot got sneaked on.

View of Armstrong Parking Lot from Dunbar High School window. Taken April 2018.

There were problems with the CAPCS school and it’s founder. In 2015 Jennie Niles, the Deputy Mayor for Education issued a letter saying:

Dear CAPCS Parents and Guardians,

This morning, the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board (PCSB), an independent board, voted to revoke the charter for Community Academy Public Charter School (CAPCS). While the vote will undoubtedly cause angst for the 1,600 CAPCS students and their families, the District of Columbia is ready to make sure that the needs of the students are met for the 2015-16 school year.

At the request of Mayor Bowser, I developed a plan in collaboration with Friendship Public Charter Schools, DC Bilingual Public Charter School, and the Chancellor of DC Public Schools to provide as much continuity as possible for CAPCS students and families.

Armstrong Campus (1400 First Street, NW): Friendship Public Charter School will assume operations beginning next school year (2015-16) for all 523 students……

After that Armstrong has been operating as a regular old charter school. I’m happy it is a building that is being used and maintained.

Armstrong Technical High School, March 1942. Photo by Marjorie Collins.

This Was Once A Functional School- Langston School

Among the Library of Congress photographs were photographs of the John Mercer Langston School, which sits on the unit block of P St NW in Truxton Circle. I discovered photographs of the Langston School among the several photographs that photojournalist Marjory Collins took in March 1942. However, like the Slater School, it was not labeled. Thank goodness these schools are located so close to each other that this slice of Truxton Circle history has been captured.

Collins, it seems was aiming to focus on the woman in the hat, not so much the school building.

[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Washington, D.C. Schoolteacher] Library of Congress

It was part of a series of photos of a school teacher. As the teacher seemed to live in a whole other part of town a goes unnamed, just like the school, I’m not particularly interested in following her story.

Langston Elementary was a functional school. It had students and teachers and staff. But now it is just an empty historic building: