Penn Quarter, Washington, D.C.
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Penn Quarter is a neighborhood in the East End of downtown Washington, D.C., located just north of Pennsylvania Avenue, halfway between the White House and the U.S. Capitol Building — between 3rd Street on the east and 15th Street on the west, Pennsylvania Avenue on the south and New York and Massachusetts avenues on the north. Penn Quarter has been rejuvenated over the past several decades, stimulated first by the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation and later, following the recession in the 1990's by the Verizon Center, which opened in 1997. Penn Quarter now boasts quality museums, theaters, designer clothing stores, destination restaurants, and contemporary art galleries. Over the past decade, Penn Quarter has expanded to include the city's dwindling Chinatown as well as commercial and residential blocks that adjoined the nucleus of this downtown neighborhood.
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[edit] Revitalization
Penn Quarter's initial growth occurred under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation whose Pennsylvania Avenue Plan called for a mixed-use neighborhood that included residences, offices, theaters and other cultural venues, retail, and restaurants in both new and renovated buildings framing new parks and plazas. The nearby Verizon Center, which opened in 1997, stimulated the revitalization of adjacent blocks to the north and east and expanded the Penn Quarter neighborhood so that it now encompasses Chinatown.
Penn Quarter is home to some of the best restaurants, cultural, and entertainment venues in Washington, D.C. Dozens of new restaurants and shops have recently opened for business both on and off of the 7th Street entertainment district. On Thursday afternoons during summer, the FRESHFARM Penn Quarter farmers market is open on 8th Street, just south of E Street. Freedom Forum is constructing a new facility for the Newseum, a Wolfgang Puck white table cloth restaurant, office and television studio space, and rental apartments at 6th Street & Pennsylvania Avenue; the Newseum is slated to open in September 2007. Penn Quarter is a culturally rich neighborhood with more legitimate theaters (seven currently, nine when two now under construction are completed) and performance spaces and museums than any other neighborhood in the metropolitan area. Only the adjacent National Mall with many Smithsonian museums and the National Gallery of Art can claim to have more than the five museums currently open in Penn Quarter. Residents also have a number of choices for strenuous activities: from running on the Mall to bowling at Lucky Strike in the Gallery Place development at 7th and H Sts., to working out at the Washington Sports Club, YWCA, the Fit Club at Washington Center, or the new VIDA Fitness in the Verizon Center. Other neighborhood amenities include: several coffee shops; Teaism, a teahouse and restaurant; Cowgirl Creamery on F Street between 9th and 10th, which has a wide selection of cheeses; three salons and day spas: Celadon, Saint Germain, and Toka; Coup de Foudre lingerie; several bookstores; the Landmark E Street Cinema, which shows independent films; Regal Theater; and several ice cream shops: Gifford's Ice Cream and Candy shop, Haagen Dazs, two Ben & Jerry's and a Maggie Moo's. Over the past thirty years the neighborhood has transformed from a sleepy, nondescript part of downtown into a vibrant 24-hour community with an abundant number of new upscale apartment and condominium complexes.
[edit] Notable places
Attractions located in Penn Quarter include:
- Ford's Theatre
- Harman Center for the Arts - Lansburgh Theater and Sidney Harman Hall (opening in 2007)
- National Theatre
- Warner Theatre
- Flashpoint
- Warehouse Theater
- International Spy Museum
- J. Edgar Hoover Building - FBI headquarters
- Marian Koshland Science Museum - Natl. Academy of Sciences
- National Archives
- National Building Museum
- National Gallery of Art
- Newseum - Freedom Forum (under construction)
- National Museum of Women in the Arts
- U.S. Navy Memorial
- Verizon Center
- Goethe-Institut
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- National Portrait Gallery
- Woolly Mammoth Theater Company
- Zenith Gallery
- Touchstone Gallery
- Canadian Embassy
- Booth Alley
[edit] Area Events
- Arts on Foot
- Capital Fringe Festival
- Farmer's Market
- 3rd Thursday Art Crawls
- DC Shorts Film Festival
[edit] Transportation
Penn Quarter is served by the Archives-Navy Mem'l-Penn Quarter and Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro stations and by the Circulator bus, which connects Georgetown, Union Station, and the attractions on The Mall to Penn Quarter.
[edit] References
- Zibart, Eve Penn Ultimate, Washington Post. September 10, 2004. [1]
[edit] External links
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- Mapping from Multimap or GlobalGuide or Google Maps
- Aerial image from TerraServer
- Satellite image from WikiMapia
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