8. Merchants and Tontine Coffee Houses

The intersection of Water and Wall Street, also where the New York slave market was located

These two coffee houses at the intersection of today’s Water and Wall Streets, were important business locations throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Alexander Hamilton had the founding meeting of the Bank of New York in the Merchants Coffee House in 1784. The New York Manumission Society which worked to abolish slavery in New York State held their second meeting at the Tontine Coffee House where Hamilton was in attendance. The organization was co-founded by Hamilton along with a few other prominent New Yorkers like John Jay.