page_title: True Reformer Building
section_title: Ownership changes
hierarchical_section_title: True Reformer Building / Ownership changes
caption_attribution_description: True Reformer Building, located on U Street. Photo taken from across the street at Ben's Chili Bowl (Ben Ali Way named for the owner of Ben's Chili Bowl).
context_page_description: The True Reformer Building is an historic building constructed for the True Reformers, an African American organization founded by William Washington Browne. The building is at 1200 U Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C. in the U Street Corridor neighborhood. It was designed by John Anderson Lankford. The building was commissioned by the Grand United Order of True Reformers in 1902. It was dedicated on July 15, 1903.
context_section_description: The Knights of Pythias bought the building in 1917.
  From 1937 to 1959, the Boys Club of the Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia, leased the building; Eleanor Roosevelt rededicated the building.
  Other tenants have included: Washington Conservancy, the DC Chapter of the National Negro Business League, the First Separate Battalion. 
  Duke Ellington gave his first performance here.
  The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. 
  The Public Welfare Foundation bought it in 1999. It was renovated from the winter of 2000 until February 2001 according to designs by Sorg & Associates.
caption: As seen from Ben's Chili Bowl in 2007 with Duke Ellington mural (now gone)
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