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 1990s by the Verizon Center, which opened in 1997 as the MCI Center. 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