Merchants' Exchange on Fire, Wall Street

Merchants' Exchange on Fire, Wall Street - 1835

Original title: Hanington's Dioramic Representation of the Great Fire in New York, Dec. 16 and 17, 1835. Now exhibiting with other moving dioramic scenes, at the American Museum every evening. Hand-colored lithograph by artist H. Sewell, 1836. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.

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Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art that accompanies this engraving: «New York has suffered many terrible fires, with one of the worst breaking out on December 16, 1835. Coals from a stove ignited a broken gas line in the commercial district south of Wall Street, and the resulting flames, fanned by high winds, proved uncontrollable. Over two days, 674 buildings were lost across seventeen blocks. This print advertises a diorama mounted at the American Museum in 1836 that allowed visitors to relive one of the disaster’s most dramatic moments—the collapse of the Merchants’ Exchange, a marble building that was supposedly fireproof. Within a year, five hundred new buildings had been erected and much of the devastated area restored and improved, demonstrating the city’s economic strength and incessant demand for real estate.»

This Merchants' Exchange building was designed by Martin Euclid Thompson and Josiah R. Brady. It was completed in 1827. It was home of the New York Stock and Exchange Board, the post office (basement), the Chamber of Commerce and other offices.