An armed robbery was reported Tuesday night in downtown Washington at 10th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue — an unexpected place for such a crime, not because it is downtown but because it is steps from the front door of FBI headquarters.

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       Officers were called to the intersection about 6:45 p.m. after a robbery involving a gun was reported near there, a police spokesman said. The victim was not described, and it was unclear what was taken. No injury was reported.

       Even as the frequency of robberies has been increasing in the city this year, some places would appear to be unlikely sites for such crimes.

       Certainly a robbery would not be expected at the front door of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. But the building stretches for a full block, from Ninth Street to 10th, where the robbery was reported.

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       Moreover, FBI premises in Washington are guarded by the FBI Police, a uniformed force tasked with securing the agency’s facilities.

       Although the headquarters building is large and imposing, there is little in the way of signage to suggest the work that goes on inside.

       And it was not certain from the preliminary information officially available which of the four corners of the intersection was the site of the crime.

       But it is also true that the large federal building on the south side of Pennsylvania, across the street from the FBI building, is the headquarters of the Department of Justice.