Old London coffee house, s.w. corner of Market and Front street. [graphic] / Photograph taken Augt. 1858 by James E. McClees.
Title
Old London coffee house, s.w. corner of Market and Front street
Description
View showing the former coffee house and merchants' exchange. Shows building tenanted by Ulrich & Brother's Tobacco & Segar Store (100 Market). Crates stand piled near the entranceways and striped poles and window shutters adorn the building. Also shows the adjacent men's and boys' clothing stores operated by Philip Hunt (100 Market) and William Umberger (102 Market); merchandise on display; a handcart resting idle on Front Street; and a conestoga wagon parked near a pile of barrels on the sidewalk. Also shows a doll standing on one of the piles of crates in front of the tobacco store. Originally built in 1702, the former coffee house was razed circa 1883 by the Ulrich brothers, whose family purchased the building in 1813., Title, date, and photographer's imprint form Poulson inscription on mount., Contains a newspaper clipping dated January 19, 1842 about the changed social climate in Philadelphia over the last eight years and an advertisement for Mr. Rice as Jim Crow on the verso., McClees 1858-9., Originally part of a series of eleven scrapbooks compiled by Philadelphia antiquarian Charles A. Poulson in the late 1850s entitled "Illustrations of Philadelphia" volume 11, page 47. The scrapbooks contained photographs of 18th-century public, commercial, and residential buildings in the city of Philadelphia collected by Poulson to document the vanishing architectural landscape., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Reproduced in The Print and Photograph Department of the Library Company of Philadelphia's Center City Philadelphia in the 19th century (Portsmouth, N.H.: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), p. 96., Arcadia caption text: The old London Coffee House, depicted here, and the Merchants’ Coffee House (also known as City Tavern) served as informal business exchanges in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Merchants, ship owners, and investors gathered at these establishments to conduct business, advertise their wares, attend auctions, discuss politics and trade, and drink coffee with their associates. This photograph, taken in August of 1858, shows the former coffeehouse at the southwest corner of Market and Front streets occupied by a variety of businesses including a tobacconist, a barber, and a clothing shop., Reproduced in Kenneth Finkel's Nineteenth century photography in Philadelphia (New York: Dover Publications, Inc. in cooperation with the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1980), entry #74., McClees, an early prominent Philadelphia photographer and daguerreotypist, produced some of the earliest paper photographic views of Philadelphia between 1853 and 1859.
Creator
M'Clees, Jas. E. (James E.), photographer
Date
August 1858
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department photo - McClees - Hotels, Inns, and Taverns [(2)2526.F.47]