Penn Quarter is a neighborhood in the East End of Downtown Washington, D.C.. This popular downtown neighborhood is located just north of Gallery Place.

Pennsylvania Avenue, between 5th and 9th streets NW and south of F Street. 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 1990s by the Verizon Center, which opened at Gallery Place in 1997

as the MCI Center. Penn Quarter now boasts quality museums, theaters, destination restaurants, and contemporary art galleries. The Penn Quarter area is just south of Gallery Place and Chinatown and it is immediately east of the city's traditional shopping district at Metro Center. Penn Quarter has roughly 10,000 residents.[1]

 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 former flagship store of Lansburgh's department store on 7th Street was at the forefront of the revitalization.^[1]The nearby Verizon Center, which opened in 1997, stimulated the revitalization of adjacent blocks to the north and east and the Penn Quarter neighborhood to the south.

Penn Quarter is home to many 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. The Newseum, which opened April 11, 2008, is located at the intersection of 6th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. The building also includes offices and television studio space, rental apartments, and a restaurant. Penn Quarter is a culturally rich neighborhood with more legitimate theaters (seven currently, eight when one more planned is constructed) and performance spaces and museums than any other neighborhood in the metropolitan area.

The neighborhood is served by recreational facilities such as Lucky Strike bowling and multiple exercise clubs. Other neighborhood amenities include several coffee shops; Teaism, a teahouse and restaurant on 8th Street, three salons that incorporate day spas (Celadon, Saint Germain, and Toka); Coup de Foudre, a French lingerie shop; two bookstores; the Landmark E Street Cinema nearby at Metro Center which shows independent films; Regal Theater; and several ice cream shops (Gifford's Ice Cream and Candy shop, Häagen Dazs, two Ben & Jerry's, and Maggie Moo). 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.

Notable places

Attractions located in or near Penn Quarter include:

• Ford's Theatre
• Petersen House
• Booth Alley
• Shakespeare Theatre Company at the Harman Center for the Arts - includes the Lansburgh Theatre and Sidney Harman Hall
• National Theatre
• Warner Theatre
• Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (www.woollymammoth.net)
• Flashpoint
• International Spy Museum
• Crime & Punishment Museum
• J. Edgar Hoover Building - FBI headquarters
• Madame Tussauds D.C.
• Marian Koshland Science Museum - National Academy of Sciences
• National Archives
• National Building Museum
• National Gallery of Art
• Newseum - Freedom Forum
• National Museum of Women in the Arts
• Smithsonian American Art Museum
• National Portrait Gallery
• U.S. Navy Memorial
• Verizon Center
• Goethe-Institut
• Zenith Gallery
• Touchstone Gallery
• Civilian Arts Project
• Calvary Baptist Church
• Apartment Zero
• Weschler's Auctioneers
• Willard Intercontinental Hotel
• Canadian Embassy

Transportation

Penn Quarter is served by the Archives–Navy Memorial–Penn Quarter, Metro Center, Judiciary Square, and Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro stations by the Metrobus Bus & by Circulator bus, which connects Georgetown, Union Station, and the attractions on The Mall to Penn Quarter.