F Street and 7th Street shopping districts

In the first half of the 20th century there were numerous upscale large department stores along and near F Street, while 7th Street housed more economical emporia and large retail furniture stores.

[1][2] The F street corridor stretches west from Downtown's Penn Quarter and Gallery Place towards 15th Street, while the 7th Street corridor includes the neighborhoods of Penn Quarter, Chinatown and Mount Vernon Square, and extends up to the border of Shaw.

Its northern end faced Pennsylvania Avenue between 7th and 9th Streets.

Transportation by Washington, D.C.'s streetcars, first horse-drawn, then electrified, notably the busy transfer point at F and 9th, helped solidify this area as D.C.'s most popular shopping district during that time.

From north to south and east to west: From north to south and east to west: In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, 7th Street north of F, as far as O Street in today's Shaw district, was home not only to several of the more economical large department stores such as Goldberg's and Harry Kaufman's, but to the city's concentration of furniture retailers.