Answer Man Gets Lucky On Seven Corners Sign Quest

The shopping center (it wasn't a mall -- a roof was added later) was the brainchild of Irving Berger, son-in-law of developer Garfield Kass. Together they were Kass-Berger Inc. (Kass got his start in 1927 as a real estate salesman for a familiar Washington name: Morris Cafritz.)

At the time, the suburbs were starved for quality shopping options. If you wanted a nice dress or suit, you headed downtown, to the stores along F Street NW. The tide was turning, though. It was dawning on developers that perhaps it would be better to bring the stores to the shoppers than expect shoppers to go to the stores.

Built at the confluence of routes 50 and 7 (in an area known as Fort Buffalo, after a Civil War fort, wrote Arlington County's Tom Poole), Seven Corners was anchored by Garfinckel's and Woodward & Lothrop. Among the forty other stores were Fannie Mae candy, Thom McAn shoes, Peck & Peck women's sportswear and two Peoples Drug stores (one on each floor). Ike Martini, the barber who trimmed Dwight Eisenhower's hair in the White House, operated a barbershop staffed with 10 barbers and two manicurists.

Bob Dalton grew up two blocks from Seven Corners, on Shadeland Drive. "The shopping center was one of the playgrounds of my childhood," he wrote. "While mom went shopping, dad would let me run the length of the two seemingly-endless concourses. As my friends and I got older, it was a place we rode our bikes to for milkshakes at the Peoples Drug soda fountain. . . . And like many of my friends, I learned to drive in the enormous parking lot."

In 1963, Seven Corners had the largest annual volume of any of the suburban shopping centers, racking up sales of $61,093,000. It's lost much of its luster since, as department stores closed and shoppers flocked to larger malls. The signature sign was reportedly knocked down by wind and never replaced.

"The concrete base for the sign can still be seen there, partially obscured by landscaping shrubbery," wrote reader Robert Osborne.

Send your questions about the Washington area toanswerman@washpost.com.