Views of Justice

Views of Justice. Cultural Convergence. , On your left once stood Belmont, an impressive stone mansion built in 1883 by entrepreneur Amzi L. Barber, "America's Asphalt King." Barber headed the Education Department at Howard University at the time of its founding in 1867. He soon bought land from the university to build the exclusive LeDroit Park neighborhood. Next he entered the asphalt paving business, and came to dominate it nationwide. Barber also worked with Ohio Senator John Sherman to create the Columbia Heights subdivision., For years Belmont was a landmark that greeted streetcar riders cresting the 14th Street hill. Justice William R. Day was one of the powerful men who lived nearby., After Barber's death, developer Harry Wardman bought Belmont, only to replace it in 1915 with Wardman Courts, then the city's largest luxury apartment complex. In 1921 new owners named it Clifton Terrace. The once-glamorous complex did not age well, and succeeding owners deferred maintenance and crowded more tenants into the units. By the 1960s, the situation was so bad that, with help from CHANGE, Inc. and others, tenants organized and stopped paying rent. When the landlord tried to evict them, the tenants sued. In a landmark 1970 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals, Javins v. First National Realty Corporation established the right of tenants to withhold rent payments when conditions violated housing codes., Social activist Rev. Channing Phillips's Housing Development Corporation renovated Clifton Terrace in the late 1960s. In 2003 the buildings, once again named Wardman Courts, reopened as condominiums and rental units.