Goethe-Institut Washington
 German Roots in Washington

  • Goethe-Institut Washington, 812-816 Seventh Street NW, 2007. Photo credit: Toolbox DC
  • Goethe-Institut Washington, 812-816 Seventh Street NW, 2008. Photo credit: Goethe-Institut Washington/Norma Broadwater
    Goethe-Institut Washington, 812-816 Seventh Street NW, 2008.
  • Goethe-Institut Washington, 812-816 Seventh Street NW, 2000. Photo credit: Goethe-Institut Washington/William Gilcher
    Goethe-Institut Washington, 812-816 Seventh Street NW, 2000.
  • Shop Window, 816 7th Street NW, around 1907. The lights of these shop windows, perhaps readied for the holidays, entice you to consider a fur, a new suit (a steal, really, at $14.95), a new umbrella, or perhaps some 'Practical Presents for Little Folks'. Photo credit: From the Collections of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
    Shop Window, 816 7th Street NW, around 1907. The lights of these shop windows, perhaps readied for the holidays, entice you to consider a fur, a new suit (a steal, really, at $14.95), a new umbrella, or perhaps some 'Practical Presents for Little Folks'.
The Goethe-Institut / German Cultural Center had its home here on Seventh Street NW and was one of many cultural attractions in the Gallery Place / Chinatown neighborhood. The center offered films, discussions, photographic exhibitions, and many German language courses. (It is now located elsewhere in the city.)

Before the Goethe-Institut moved to this renovated office building in the mid-1990s, the building housed commercial shops and restaurants. German immigrant Emile Berliner (1851-1929), inventor of the gramophone, had his first job in a haberdashery located at the same address when he came to the United States in 1870.