Funkstown: Green’s Court – They Wanted Housing, They Got Highways

By Frank Leone

On October 26, 1939, John Ihlder, Executive Director of Washington, D.C.’s Alley Dwelling Authority, spoke to the Briggs-Montgomery Elementary Parent-Teachers Association about the “Rehousing Program in D.C.”  The PTA was interested in securing an affordable housing project in Green’s Court to replace existing “slum” dwellings. As noted in a recent post, Green’s Court was located in the heart of Foggy Bottom’s Square 5 – between 26th and 27th, I and K Streets, and housed several hundred residents. Briggs-Montgomery Elementary was an African American school located across 27th Street (on Square 1). The ADA was charged with addressing a severe housing shortage and substandard living conditions in D.C., particularly in the alley dwellings. Long-time Executive Director Ihlder was an important and controversial figure in urban housing policy – a progressive reformer who nevertheless advanced racial segregation.

Undated photo of Briggs-Montgomery Elementary School on the west side of  27th St. (Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives)

The community formed a committee to pursue the Green’s Court housing project idea, which included Briggs-Montgomery PTA members and principal Ruth G. Savoy, the First Ward Neighborhood Council (Mrs. Warren Gardner, Chairman) and Mr. Goodman, Executive Secretary of the Washington Urban League. (Dr. E.F. Harris of the Lincoln Civic Association was asked to participate, but preferred to focus on other housing efforts.)

The committee met with Ihlder on Nov. 14, 1939. At the meeting, “Mrs. Savoy said that Negro residents of the area – particularly that part of the area in the West End served by the Briggs-Montgomery Schools, wish to remain there. She said she could not see why, if the government buys land for parks, it can not buy land for houses for people and let them stay where they have always been.”  Ihlder responded that “it would be to the advantage of the city for this area to remain a Negro area.”  But improvements in the Foggy Bottom area, e.g., new government buildings, raised land values and the development of new high rent apartment houses made it “impractical to hold it for low-rent dwellings.”

Ihlder explained that if certain criteria were met, ADA would apply to the U.S. Housing Authority for a loan to “finance a negro housing project in this square.” The criteria included obtaining options to buy property from over 50% of the property owners, at an average cost of less than $1.50 per square foot, with the total assessed value no more than 145% of the tax assessed value.

Square 5 with Green’s Court in 1939 – note Briggs-Montgomery Elementary School across 27th Street, Morning Star Baptist Church (932-934 26th Street, approximately 1925-1961) and a large apartment building (940-942 26th Street) (1939 Baist's real estate atlas of surveys of Washington, District of Columbia)

Mrs. Savoy said that the PTA would try to secure options in the Green’s Court Square (excluding K St. frontage) within the AHA cost criteria – a project involving “arduous labor and untiring efforts” from the “inexpert and inexperienced” group. The committee presented its report on April 18, 1940, indicating that it had obtained from property owners’ options on 47.9% of the properties at $1.46 per square foot and 145% of assessed value. The ADA did its own appraisals and disputed the PTA’s numbers. Ihlder’s June 25, 1940 letter stated that the PTA obtained options from only 35.6% of the property owners and those options were questionable, the cost per square foot could not be determined to be less than $1.40, and the assessed value was 400% that of the tax assessment. 

On April 4, 1941, Mrs. Edith Hackney, PTA President, wrote to First Lady Eleonor Roosevelt, requesting assistance.  She reminded Mrs. Roosevelt of the “terrible conditions” in Snows and Green’s Court, including families living five to seven people in a room, four to six families living in one house with one or no baths, under deplorable conditions, that were detrimental to health.  She asked Mrs. Roosevelt to assist in getting better homes for the families of the area. Mr. Ihlder responded on Mrs. Roosevelt’s behalf (May 23, 1941) with a defensive, eight-page single-spaced letter that insisted that the PTA plan had not met the ADA criteria. 

First page of Letter from (Mrs.) Edith Hackney, President, Briggs-Montgomery Parent-Teacher Association to First Lady Eleonor Roosevelt (April 4, 1941), requesting support for a federal housing project in Green’s Court. You can read the complete two-page letter here. (National Archives, National Capital Housing Authority Records)

An ADA memorandum concluded that: “Even though the committee failed in its objective, it showed interest, enthusiasm and a public-spirited civic pride in attempting to secure public housing in its neighborhood.”  But the bottom line, as the ADA saw it, was the property values were too high for the ADA to build low-income housing in Green’s Court. Instead, many Green’s Court rowhouses were renovated and sold in the 1950s, but even those were demolished for the construction of the Potomac Freeway in the early 1960s.

Source:  Thanks so much to Carolyn Swope (Ph.D. candidate Columbia University) for obtaining records of the National Capital Housing Authority, File RG302, Box 1, Square 5 Green’s Court NW from the National Archives, which contained the documents relevant to this post.