Exchange Street runs in front of you, the main commercial thoroughfare of Portland's Old Port. Laid out in 1724, this one-way ribbon runs about 0.24 miles from Congress Street in the northwest to Fore Street in the southeast. Right here you can picture the parade of uses: today it features designer clothing stores and a cluster of small, locally owned businesses, among them Sherman's Maine Coast Books.
Walk this short distance and you cross the street’s principal intersections in order — Congress, Federal, Middle and Fore — each a notch in the neighborhood’s long story. Imagine the Merchant Exchange Building that once occupied Post Office Park between Middle, Market and Exchange: completed in 1839 to designs by Boston architect Richard Bond, it housed Atlantic Bank and even served as a U.S. Custom House into the 1850s before it burned in 1854. The site continued to host federal buildings through 1965.
Nearby, at 16 Exchange Street, the John Neal Block, built in 1866, still marks a chapter of civic life; John Neal first established his law practice on Exchange Street in 1827 next to Samuel Fessenden’s office. Notice the block around, from Congress Street down to Fore, and the shops that line it.