ABSTRACT
In the second half of the nineteenth century, specialized commodity exchanges developed for trade in coal and iron, cotton, grains and flour, tea, coffee and ‘produce’. A new architectural form emerged, supplanting earlier ‘merchant exchanges’, that combined a large trading floor and a suite of offices above; these hybrid office buildings and nearby skyscrapers housed exchange members specializing in transportation, insurance or import/export services related to a specific commodity. The shifting size and location of the New York Produce Exchange in a fast-changing Manhattan business district exemplifies the architecture of hurry that linked producers and consumers across increasingly global commodity chains.
