6 Harrison Street (New York City, New York) | condominiums

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Former New York Mercantile Exchange Building, an 8.5-story Queen Anne-style (with Romanesque-revival elements) office building completed in 1886. Designed by Thomas R. Jackson, it is clad in red brick and granite. The contrasting materials, asymmetry, and a variety of decorative treatments used in the design are typical of the Queen Anne style, while the round-arched, deeply-set windows, the paired columns, and the corbelled brickwork are elements characteristic of Romanesque-Revival buildings.

On the two facades, the granite piers and cornice of the 1st floor set off the base. A granite bandcourse above the 3rd floor surmounts tall, arcaded window openings which mark the 2-story trading floor. The facades are again divided by another granite bandcourse above the 5th floor. The 4th & 5th floors form a double-height segmental arcade with paneled spandrels. At the 6th floor the fenestration changes to smaller arched windows, set more closely together, but with a similar decorative scheme. The arcades are embellished by such elements as pilasters with contrasting granite capitals, keystones, and molded brick.

The Hudson Street facade is symmetrically arranged around a broad central bay ornamented with overscaled consoles. This section is capped by a triangular gable, supported by paired colonnettes, which intersects the hipped roof. A similar gabled arrangement is found in the eastern bay of the Harrison Street facade, balanced asymmetrically by a large, square tower in the western bay which is crowned by a mansard roof peaked to a flagpole. This tower is ornamented by multipane bull's-eye windows, terra-cotta panels, and a brick corbel table. At the ground story of the western bay is the main entrance to the building, marked by a granite porch with an ornate entablature carried on paired columns.

Portions of the ground-story infill, including the doors, have been modernized. The cast-iron piers in the bays remain intact. The Mercantile Exchange used this building from its completion until 1977, when it moved further downtown to the World Trade Center. The building then housed several small businesses and was partially unoccupied until it was converted to condominiums in the late 1990s. The ground floor is occupied by Jungsik Korean restaurant, and Communications Workers of America Local 1180.