Financial History Issue 113 (Spring 2015) | Page 27
The first Produce Exchange was at 39 Whitehall Street, between
Water and Pearl Streets. It was designed by Leopold Eidlitz and
completed in 1861. After the Produce Exchange moved to
a new building on Bowling Green, the United States Army
Building was constructed in the 1880s on the foundations of
this building. The Army Building was bombed by protestors
during the Vietnam War.
George B. Post won a design competition for the new Produce Exchange at 2 Broadway, facing Bowling Green Park. The
building required 4,000 drawings for its design, and the flag
flying above the tower was at the time the largest ever made.
The main hall of the Produce Exchange was 144 feet wide by
220 feet long and featured a skylight 60 feet above the floor.
The Produce Exchange was demolished in 1957.
The New York Stock Exchange adopted its current name in 1863, and two
years later the organization ceased being a tenant occupying a variety of
rented spaces when it moved into its own building on Broad Street. This
photograph from the renowned firm of E. & H.T. Anthony & Co. was taken
when the marble of the exterior was still gleaming white. Later photographs show the effects of urban pollution.
This 1880s photograph shows the entrance to the Drexel,
Morgan & Co. building at 23 Wall Street at the left. At the time,
J.P. Morgan was in partnership with the prominent Drexel
family of Philadelphia. After the death of Anthony J. Drexel in
1893, the firm was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co. At the center of
the photograph is the enlarged and extensively redesigned
New York Stock Exchange. The architect for the project was
James Renwick Jr., who also designed St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
His building for the NYSE featured eight polished red granite
columns at the entryway.
www.MoAF.org | Spring 2015 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 25