Merchants Exchange Building, Office building in Financial District, San Francisco, United States.
The Merchants Exchange Building is a Beaux-Arts office building in San Francisco's Financial District, with a symmetrical stone facade and classical columns facing Montgomery Street. Rising 15 stories, it still contains the original central trading floor on the ground level that was built as part of the original structure.
The building was designed by Daniel Burnham and completed in 1904, just two years before the earthquake that destroyed much of San Francisco. It survived that disaster largely intact, which helped it remain a working part of the Financial District in the years that followed.
The building stands on Montgomery Street, long considered the heart of San Francisco's financial world, where banks and trading firms have operated side by side for generations. Walking past the stone facade and its columns gives a sense of how commerce once shaped the identity of this part of the city.
The building sits on Montgomery Street in the heart of the Financial District, within easy reach of public transit. Most of the interior is private office space, but the exterior and entrance area can be seen freely during business hours.
The central trading floor on the ground level was once used by merchants who watched the port with telescopes to identify arriving ships before they docked. Large paintings of harbor scenes line the walls of that room and can still be seen today.
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