The Royal Exchange building in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, later known as the "Old Royal Exchange" and the Merchants Exchange was a covered marketplace located near the foot of Broad Street, near its intersection with Water Street.Suzy Maroon. ''The Supreme Court of the United States'', New York and Charlottesville: Thomasson-Grant and Lickle (1996), p. 18. Originally a one-story building in 1675, it was rebuilt with a meeting hall on the upper story in 1752, typical of the type of market halls found in England and Europe at the time. The Chamber of Commerce in the City of New York (

Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York The New York Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1768 by twenty New York City merchants. As the first such commercial organization in the United States, it attracted the participation of a number of New York's most influential business leaders, in ...

after 1784) met in the building's second-floor meeting area from 1770 until the Revolutionary War. In 1785, when New York City became the nation's capital, the

New York State Legislature The New York State Legislature consists of the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York: The New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. The Constitution of New York does not designate an officia ...

began meeting in the building; the Congress of the Confederation had started meeting in the legislature's previous locationwhich became known as

Federal Hall Federal Hall is a historic building at 26 Wall Street in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The current Greek Revival–style building, completed in 1842 as the Custom House, is operated by the National Park Service as a nat ...

. On November 3, 1789, the federal court for the District of New York (later the

Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New ...

) sat in the building, the first federal court to sit under the new

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

. The first District Court Judge was

James Duane James Duane (February 6, 1733 – February 1, 1797) was an American Founding Father, attorney, jurist, and American Revolutionary leader from New York. He served as a delegate to the First Continental Congress, Second Continental Congress an ...

. The court's earliest business in the building included admitting local lawyers to the bar, including Aaron Burr.Robert Pigott. ''New York's Legal Landmarks: A Guide to Legal Edifices, Institutions, Lore, History, and Curiosities on the City's Streets'', New York: Attorney Street Editions (2014), pp. 7–8. The court moved to

in 1791. The

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

held its inaugural session in the building February 2–10, 1790. Before the court convened, city officials moved the market's butchers and placed chains across the street so as to spare the court "interruption from the noise of carts." A second session was held in August 1790. The court met in New York for a total of twelve days before it moved to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

with the rest of the federal government in 1791. The Royal Exchange building was demolished in 1799.

References and notes

{{SCOTUS horizontal History of New York City New York State Legislature Former seats of local government Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York History of the Supreme Court of the United States