By John Kelly
Sunday, May 13, 2007

As a child growing up in Falls Church in the '50s and '60s, I remember the Seven Corners Shopping Center in its heyday. I seem to remember a large number 7 at the far end of the parking lot (near Garfinckel's) that served as not only a sign for the shopping center but also as a weather indicator for all who drove by. I have asked many of my friends if they remember this, but nobody does. Did I dream this up?

-- Libby Kephart, Falls Church

"Tell Libby that she's not dreaming," wrote Tom Egly of Alexandria, just one of dozens of readers who responded to Answer Man's call for help last week.

"Libby does not suffer with false memory syndrome," wrote Janet Daeger Walden, reference librarian in the local history room of the Mary Riley Styles Public Library in Falls Church.

"FINALLY!!!!" chimed in Anne J. Dubrow. "I've been wondering about that sign at Seven Corners for years. Most inquiries are met with blank stares."

The first car drove under that magical sign Oct. 4, 1956, the day of the shopping center's grand opening. The sign consisted of an 80-foot-tall vertical section that read "7 CORNERS" and a horizontal arch reading "SHOPPING CENTER." The 11-foot-tall "7" forecast the weather. An anonymous reader wrote Answer Man with a jingle from those days:

When Number 7 is shining red, nasty weather is ahead.

When Number 7 is shining green, fair weather is foreseen.

When Number 7 is shining white, cloudy weather is in sight.

A vertical row of lights flashed upward when the temperature was increasing and downward when the mercury was falling. As if this weren't enough, there was also a three-foot-high digital clock.

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.