Public Housing and the Syphax School
had a common problem.The working poor lived in deteriorating houses and even wooden shacks.InWashington this housing of ten lined the city’s hidden alleys. People needed healthier and safer places to live. Should government build them? Private enterprise? In twoWashington public health officials, George Sternberg and George Kober,decided that private investors should build solid, affordable housing,even though there would be little profit. Between and ,they persuaded charitable Washington investors to clear slums and build , units (houses and apartments) around the city. The new housing was very popular. By ,however,the investors could no longer afford this enterprise.Fortunately five years earlier the federal government had established the Alley Dwelling Authority.With government funding,the work of creating affordable housing continued. The low-rise buildings of St.James Mutual Homes along Third and P streets were built by Sternberg and Kober’s investors in the s as Sternberg Courts and KoberApartments.The James Creek Dwellings(First and O streets) and Syphax Gardens (P Street at Half Street) were built by the All ey Dwelling Authority and its successors.Soul music su perstar Marvin Gaye ( ‒ ) spent part of his childhood at Syphax Gardens. The Syphax School, at Half Street, honors William Syphax, a descendant of Martha Washing- ton’s grandson George Washington Parke Custis and Ai ryCa rter, an enslaved woman. Syphax served as the first president of the board of the Colored Pu b li c Sch ool s of Wa s h i n g ton ( ‒ ) and was openly opposed to school segregation.Syphax School opera ted from u n til . In Manna,Inc.,was preserving the school’s exterior as part of an affordable housing development.
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