19. New York Cotton Exchange

AKA: India House
Location: 1 Hanover Square
Built: 1854
Architect: Richard Carman
National Register Number: 72001586
Listed: January 7, 1972
Visited: August 23, 2007



This started as the headquarters of Hanover Bank, one of the infinitude of strands eventually bound into JPMorgan Chase; then it became the home to one of the earliest commodities exchanges in the world. Its history of commercial use comes off as slightly ironic, considering that in this town, its look and building material are more commonly associated with our near-iconic brownstone residences. Yet not at all ironic given that the building was apparently modeled after Italian -- oh god, this word again -- palazzos, which were (as my Guide to New York City Landmarks notes) often the homes of important banking families during the Renaissance, such as the Medici.

Brownstone is a notoriously unreliable building material, flaking off in layers like a pastry crust sometimes after only a few decades of weathering, but even after 150 years, the building is almost entirely without blemish -- to use another food simile, it looks like a molded block of chocolate. (I think you can tell I'm on a diet. I can't eat chocolate, and it's killing me.)