00:00:02.060 - 00:00:24.060

You had at the beginning something about the general setting that Pop Halbert had? Yeah, well, one cannot understand Weiner-Böhm and the cooperative movement and the cooperative development here in the Washington area without knowing that in the

00:00:24.660 - 00:00:59.380

very early '40s and the last year of '30, 9 probably, and probably 1940 and then to '41, Pop Halbert played a very important role in the cooperative movement in this area. And he came up in the late '42 and the beginning of '43 with a kind

00:00:59.380 - 00:01:19.100

of a new deal, with a kind of a new program, a new frontier, or whatever you would call it in that respect, about cooperatives. And he got other people. Let me just check something first.

00:01:20.840 - 00:01:34.900

People, yeah. Yeah, OK. He got other people involved in his dream world. And those were mainly, I would say, Herbert Wood, Wally Cremond,

00:01:36.280 - 00:01:56.780

and Jack Charlotte, and a couple of other people. But these were really the ones who got completely enthusiastic about what Pop had addressed. And then there were about half a

00:01:56.780 - 00:02:13.760

dozen others who didn't stay long in the program or in the movement, but who were important too. But I have forgotten their names. One was a time of motion, study man, living out in Bethesda.

00:02:15.520 - 00:02:28.680

Goodell, I think, was his name. Now it comes to me. What time period is this in? That was a period of '42, the beginning of '43.

00:02:31.060 - 00:02:56.980

I was at that time manager of the Baltimore Co-Op and was in the process of moving on. I don't want to talk about my personal story there, but that's when they found out that I intended to possibly go to New

00:02:56.980 - 00:03:18.940

York to the East Front Co-O or do something else. Something else. And Wally Cremond was the one who was most active in getting me secretary of that time, and I

00:03:18.940 - 00:03:45.400

forgot his name. So somewhere in '43, I suspect it was probably in the spring of '43, I became the executive secretary, executive director of the Potomac Corporate Federation.

00:03:47.100 - 00:04:13.580

Now, that was an interesting outfit. This was an organization and kind of a federation of the existing co-ops, co-ops but its real function was or was it became the tool for Pop Halbert's expansion ideas.

00:04:15.060 - 00:04:42.100

And that was only possible and they only could afford to hire somebody and hire me even to pay the modest salaries which we had because the Potomac Cooperative Federation was officially the sponsor of the Ohio Farm Bureau insurance companies.

00:04:43.240 - 00:05:02.270

They couldn't operate in the District of Columbia and the environment, Virginia and Maryland, without having a sponsor here, without becoming kind of legalized. And that was the Potomac Cooperative Federation.

00:05:02.860 - 00:05:24.640

And for all practical purposes they paid most if not practically all the expense of the Cooperative Federation. And that's how we could function. And when I came in and we were at

00:05:24.640 - 00:05:49.160

our office and on the top of the consumer automobile repair shop and filling station facilities on Virginia Avenue. When I came there, What was that again? What-- Consumed, that was the automobile cooperatives.

00:05:49.460 - 00:05:58.200

They had an automobile repair shop, a very good one, excellent one, and a filling station. There were a number of filling stations.

00:05:58.200 - 00:06:04.020

I come back to that a little bit later. Virginia and what? District of Columbia.

00:06:04.660 - 00:06:15.280

Virginia and 20th, or... Virginia and 26th Street. Directly at the corner. I think it's now across from Watergate.

00:06:15.660 - 00:06:45.060

It's one of those big motels. And it was at that time that a constantly larger group, We had half a dozen committees at least going, if not more, each of them working on some aspect of Pop

00:06:45.060 - 00:07:04.460

Halbert's grand plan. And Jim Dunaway, who was then the manager of the Rochdale Cooperative here in Washington and the suburbs.

00:07:04.460 - 00:07:17.220

Wally Cremond, he was the manager of the Consume filling stations. There were three or four of them, and the repair shop at Virginia Avenue.

00:07:18.260 - 00:07:36.640

That was Walter Bierwagen, who was just then connected with the Greenbelt Cooperative, which just around that time got off on the way. They had two stores in Greenbelt.

00:07:37.540 - 00:07:57.320

It was Bob Wolkhausen, who was at that time the administrator for Group Health Association. It was Pop Halbert and I, and Herbert Woods who really were very hard core.

00:07:58.480 - 00:08:15.480

And we had committees which concerned themselves with the expansion of consumer cooperatives, in other words, of supermarkets, developing new supermarkets and more. There was one committee which concerned itself with medical

00:08:15.480 - 00:08:29.220

cooperatives. The upspring of that was kind of a group health outfit in Greenbelt. And of course the one here in the

00:08:29.220 - 00:08:48.460

district. Then there was one on automobile cooperatives and one on housing. And it was at that time when we

00:08:48.460 - 00:09:06.740

had gotten into these committees that Ed Barra had joined us. I don't know from where he came. He was one of the top officials. He had a very high function at the Department of Agriculture, and was

00:09:06.740 - 00:09:28.380

a Quaker, a very devoted cooperator, and extremely well-to-do, financially well-to-do. Nelson Krukshink had just come to Washington and became the director of Social Security Department, the head of that.

00:09:33.100 - 00:10:00.140

And then at Nelson's suggestion, we involved Mary Herling, who had also moved from New York and was working for the War Housing Department or something like that. Anyhow, there was a department on

00:10:00.140 - 00:10:15.420

housing which was on Rhode Island Avenue. And she was working there. And that was a godsend for us, because Nelson was originally the chairman of the housing committee.

00:10:17.680 - 00:10:32.560

But he was not an expert or had any knowledge or know-how about that. But Mary, through her new occupation, through her new work, she was, of course, a very

00:10:32.560 - 00:10:49.640

political animal and through the League of Industrial Democracy in New York. But she was deeply involved in housing and she became really the life and soul of the Committee on

00:10:49.640 - 00:11:04.440

Housing. Later on, we went into, and that was around '45. That was much later, an internal

00:11:04.440 - 00:11:23.300

committee on the radio station. I had gotten wind of the fact that licenses for FM stations would become available. And we got involved with that and later on applied for one license

00:11:24.140 - 00:11:55.240

and started a radio station, WCFM. But the thing which took more and more shape was the housing cooperative, because it was something which we felt was realistic and could be of benefit,

00:11:55.240 - 00:12:19.400

could be beneficial for the co-ops and for people, much more probably than food cooperatives. Is that something they called the group housing cooperative? Group housing, yeah.

00:12:20.660 - 00:12:43.520

GHC? Yeah. Now, we had, by that time, made enormous progress, but still very little compared to the need and possibilities in the field of food cooporatives of supermarkets.

00:12:45.060 - 00:12:56.180

We had seven stores here in the district. We had two in Greenbelt. We had eight in Richmond.

00:12:56.940 - 00:13:16.720

We had one in Westminster and one in Baltimore. So that was a total of 19 stores, but it still was not making a real impact.

00:13:16.740 - 00:13:42.260

And the stores were of a medium size. Some of them are almost similar to sizes of Safeway, which at that time was a leading supermarket outfit here in the district. But there are simply limitations there which we couldn't break

00:13:42.260 - 00:14:04.320

until we realized that other cooperatives were needed. And one which seemed to fill in real need was housing, and the other one was the other end of the line, a memorial cooperative. There was a group working on that concept.

00:14:04.700 - 00:14:31.400

Possibly, too, because Pop Halbert was very old, was probably in his 70s by that time, and probably thought more in that direction. So that became a very obvious field. The group health co-op association couldn't develop because it was

00:14:31.400 - 00:14:46.860

originally restricted to government employees and only later on, I think in the late '40s, it broke up and, or broke open I should say, and was accessible to a wider range of people.

00:14:47.860 - 00:15:04.060

But with a new cooperative in housing, that would not be the case. And from what we saw in Greenbelt, we tried to develop a co-op there too.

00:15:05.280 - 00:15:22.860

And however, I think really later, then we even started Bannockburn. I think that never became a very successful undertaking before the government was ready to sell that

00:15:23.160 - 00:15:42.420

project. And before we could mobilize the people, we had a housing cooperative, another housing cooperative going on the southeast side, a veterans cooperative.

00:15:44.760 - 00:15:58.980

I have to add the name for that later on. In fact I lived there for a while myself. And that was about the end of it. Greenbelt's celebrating its 50th

00:15:59.120 - 00:16:05.200

anniversary this year. Not as a housing cooperative. Oh, I see. As Greenbelt.

00:16:06.340 - 00:16:21.300

But the government was not ready I think before--[phone rings]. Could you stop it for a moment. I think there's a call. The government was not ready and willing to sell those housing

00:16:21.300 - 00:16:43.980

projects like Greenbelt and the other two greens new communities. And so the chance to develop a Housing Cooperative in Greenbelt came much later. But either the end of '45 or the

00:16:43.980 - 00:17:11.480

beginning of '46, I cannot say exactly when it was. We got wind of the fact that the Bannockburn Country Club was being closed and was going out of business, probably as a result of wartime difficulties which they had with their membership and to

00:17:11.480 - 00:17:28.760

maintain their existence. Anyhow, we knew that--Anyhow, we knew that the area would be available. We looked at it.

00:17:30.700 - 00:17:46.520

We snooped around. And it was at that time that one of our committee members, who was an architect, a committee member of the Housing Committee, Kerstner.

00:17:47.860 - 00:17:56.420

I forget his first name. But what was it? Kastner? Kerstner, I think. Could be Kastner.

00:17:58.260 - 00:18:30.650

I thought it was Kerstner, but could be Kastner. He was a first class, very modern architect. He developed ideas, and the committee worked on it and discussed them and he came up with collective ideas and thoughts,

00:18:30.650 - 00:19:03.640

with a model and design of a cooperative community based on the Bannockburn Country Club land, landscaping and area. And the topographical problem, of course, was enormous because of the hilly character with the greens.

00:19:03.920 - 00:19:24.880

And altogether, it was not a simple site. And what the committee wanted and Kastner designed was a housing project consisting of high-rises, what we call high-rises, six or eight stories.

00:19:24.880 - 00:19:42.100

I think it was six stories, if I'm not mistaken. Row houses, three or four townhouses together in small groupings here and there, even a

00:19:42.100 - 00:19:59.040

couple of duplexes with that. And finally detached one-family homes. There was the old clubhouse was

00:19:59.040 - 00:20:23.480

incorporated in the plan as a community center. And there was a school in the far corner of the project incorporated in the total plan. Then, all of a sudden, in a

00:20:23.480 - 00:20:42.800

relatively short time, the country club property came up for an auction. Although they were forced into an auction, although there was a voluntary auction, I don't

00:20:42.800 - 00:20:53.620

remember at this moment. And, It was April 6. What? April 6, '46. April 6.

00:20:53.620 - 00:21:10.080

So that would fit that we started already probably by the end of '45 till we knew something was going on there, and that we developed a program. Because otherwise, neither the committee nor Kastner could have

00:21:10.080 - 00:21:37.700

come up with the kind of design what they wanted to do there. So we went into the auction, and we didn't enter the bidding immediately but at a given point we entered into the bidding and strangely enough the buys for some reason or another, there was not

00:21:38.120 - 00:21:53.660

too keen interest. But it was an immediate post-war period, and not too much construction, home construction, was going on or developing, this would have been a completely

00:21:53.760 - 00:22:07.990

different situation if it would happen now. But we wound up buying, was it either 180 or 2 and, 10,000, something like that? 180,000? 186, I think.

00:22:07.990 - 00:22:14.560

And if it wasn't 80, I think it sounds to me like 180. We can look that number up. What? We can look that number up.

00:22:15.360 - 00:22:53.140

Anyhow, it was around that amount that we wound up and won the bid. Who's the we now, you say? Yeah, I should say, the people who rent there, who were at the auction. Pop Halbert, Herbert Wood, Ed Baller, Mary Herling, and I. Now,

00:22:53.140 - 00:23:06.340

it could be that Wally Cremond was there too. But I don't think so. I think if Wally Cremond would have been there, it would have been a different story, perhaps,

00:23:06.340 - 00:23:23.040

than the outcome. But I think it was basically this group. But when we had all been accepted

00:23:23.040 - 00:23:58.200

and transacted the formalities, and as I mentioned to you earlier, I don't remember at this point how we got our earnest money, how we made our down payment at the auction. But I think it was probably Ed Baller, who was relatively

00:23:58.360 - 00:24:19.100

well-to-do, who lent us the money. And then probably [inaudible]. And I think those two probably might have signed a note in addition to that vaguely in my mind.

00:24:22.360 - 00:24:49.300

But after that, the formalities were taken care of. The five or six of us, I think there were five only, walked across the country club and strolled around. And suddenly a man attatched himself to us and introduced

00:24:49.300 - 00:25:21.360

himself as an attorney and told us that he knew about our plan, our design, how he had gotten hold of that, I don't know. But he knew what we wanted to do and told us bluntly that there was not a ghost of a chance that we could get such a mixed housing

00:25:21.380 - 00:25:47.630

project approved and would get the permit from the Montgomery Count--from the Montgomery County buildings commission. And we asked him what, and he said, "Well, this area is designated as a detached home area."

00:25:53.800 - 00:26:19.080

And if the country club now becomes a housing project, there was no way that we could get anything else of the kind which we had in mind approved. So really, The man and I, just by

00:26:19.080 - 00:26:34.340

chance, by fluke chance, fell a little bit behind, probably five or six steps behind the others. And I said, "Well, what are the problems? Is there no way to get the thing

00:26:34.340 - 00:26:57.280

approved at all." He said, "Oh, yes, I have extremely good connections, and I probably could get the permit. But it would be an expensive affair. It would cost you an additional $5,000 or $6,000."

00:27:00.060 - 00:27:26.080

And I didn't see that as an insurmountable amount. But when we approached the rest of the group, they got suspicious and thought that this would be a payoff of either one or several of the commissioners in order to get all high-rises in quotation mark

00:27:28.420 - 00:27:49.700

and townhouses and duplexes approved. And duplexes approved. I immediately argued there's no reason to consider that as bribing somebody.

00:27:50.420 - 00:28:23.940

If we authorize an attorney to obtain the building permit for our project, and the first fee is five or six thousand dollars that shouldn't create any scruples with us. If he used his fee for other purposes, then if we were not

00:28:23.940 - 00:28:51.140

involved in that kind of a transaction, I could see no reason why we shouldn't let him handle the thing. Well, there came, of course, the ethical objections of the very devout Quaker, and Baller particularly, but Herbert Wood,

00:28:51.140 - 00:29:02.440

too. Herbert Wood was a very straight-laced man. He was a top official at the

00:29:02.440 - 00:29:27.970

Treasury Department, and he wanted, among no circumstances, even indirectly, anything to do that smacked of some dubious way of getting the construction permit. The only one who began to labor and who sided with me was Pop

00:29:27.970 - 00:29:41.820

Halbert. And if Wally Cremond should have been there, I would have thought Wally would have sided with us, and it would have probably been an even bet.

00:29:42.780 - 00:30:14.620

But this way, it was Herbert Wood, [inaudible] and Mary Herling on the one side, and I on the other with support from Pop Halbert. He was not insisting on it, while I was fairly vocal about it and really felt we should go ahead and just hire this man as an attorney.

00:30:17.980 - 00:30:46.120

So in the end, we wound up turning him down. Who were the bidding--Who were you bidding against? Do you have any idea who was bidding? No, I don't remember that, I was involved in that, but...There were

00:30:46.120 - 00:31:02.500

only five or six serious bidders, I think, and in the end, I'm sure, there was not a great enthusiasm among the people who were bidding for it. It was not an all-out fight.

00:31:03.580 - 00:31:19.080

It might have been one group, and somehow vaguely it's in my mind, which wanted to maintain it as a country club. And then I think probably two or three others.