Maspero’s Exchange

Now Original Pierre Maspero’s (a fairly middling restaurant), this was once La Bourse de Maspero: a cafe-cum-slave-auctioneering house where the city’s elite sipped au lait while human chattel were traded in Exchange Alley (now Exchange Place). Note the entresol (a mezzanine floor with a low ceiling visible from the exterior through the arched windows); this cramped little room was only reached through a ceiling door from the bottom floor, and is where slaves are said to have been imprisoned while awaiting their sale. This room now serves as a dining room. In 1814, the building was the headquarters for the local Committee of Public Safety, charged with marshaling citizens to fight under General Andrew Jackson.