Merchants' Exchange Original Building on Wall Street

This is the original building erected for the Merchants' Exchange, slightly different from the architects project before construction, including more steps at the principal entrance on Wall Street. Drawn by A. J. Davis, engraved by J. Yeager for The Picture of New-York, and Stranger's Guide to the Commercial Metropolis of the United States, by Andrew T. Goodrich, published in 1828 (copyright April 19).

This was one of the largest edifices in New York City at the time, designed by Martin Euclid Thompson with contribution of Josiah R. Brady. By 1830, the cupola of the of the Merchants' Exchange building was used for a telegraph station, where signals were exchanged with the signal-poles on Staten Island. For that purpose, a pointed structure was added to the cupola.

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The principal entrance to the rotunda and exchange room was by a flight of nine or ten marble steps. On ascending to the portico three doors opened to offices. Four principal rooms were attached to the exchange room, including the reading-room, and, in the rear of the rotunda, another room was used for auction sales of real estate, shipping, and stocks. To the right of this, after ascending a flight of stairs, the saloon, in which the Board of Brokers assembled daily, presented itself to the spectator.

The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal, which linked the New York City to the markets of the interior, made Manhattan the new center of the country’s economy.

The statue of Alexander Hamilton by Robert Ball Hughes (1804-1868) was installed near the center of the rotunda and unveiled by April 1835. The building was completely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835.