| has gloss | eng: The Tontine Coffee House was a New York City coffee house established in early 1793. Situated on the north-west corner of Wall and Water Street, it was built by a group of brokers to serve as a meeting place for trade and correspondence. The May 17, 1792, creation of the Buttonwood Agreement, which bound its signatories to trade only with each other, effectively gave rise to a new organisation of tradespeople. Soon thereafter, it was decided that new premises were needed for the congregation of the allied brokers; the Tontine Coffee House was the result. Having had a dual function as a combination club and a meeting room, The coffee house also provided a place for the registration of ship cargo and the trading of slaves. The Tontine was noted as classless; :The Tontine Coffee House was filled with underwriters, brokers, merchants, traders, and politicians; selling, purchasing, trafficking, or insuring; some reading, others eagerly inquiring the news […] The steps and balcony of the coffee-house were crowded with people bidding, or listening to the several auctioneers, who had elevated themselves upon a hogshead of sugar, a puncheon of rum, or a bale of cotton; and with Stentorian... |
