South Street Seaport Historic District

The East River waterfront of Lower Manhattan was a boat landing as early as 1625, when the Dutch West India Company set up a trading post there. Over the next two hundred years, it developed into one of the most prosperous commercial districts in New York, and one of the largest ports in the world. With the completion of the Erie Canal, which opened a navigable route to states on the Great Lakes, New York became the nation's foremost port, and the East River the site of its busiest docks.

As the seaport began to prosper during the 1790s, the counting house became the standard commercial building type for merchant shipping companies in the area. The typical counting house consisted of three or four stories, topped by a high-pitched slate or tile roof, designed in the Georgian or Federal style, with storage lofts and a counting room for keeping accounts and records. It was from such buildings that great merchant families, including the Schermerhorns, the Macys, and the Lows, conducted business. The Great Fire of 1835 influenced subsequent development of the district, creating a demand for new warehouses and offices, which were constructed in the Greek Revival style. Many of the surviving buildings in the district were remodeled in the new style, so that few retain much of their original Georgian detail.

By the 1850s, the prosperity of the seaport reached its peak with New York considered one of the largest ports in the world, second only to London. After the 1850s, with the change in shipping technology and with the commercial center of the city moving northward, the seaport went into decline. Fortunately, the seaport was sustained partly through the efforts of the Fulton Market Fishmongers Association created in the 1860s. As the shipping merchants left the district, businesses related to the fish market began to take their place, helping to maintain the seaport. ©2014