Schermerhorn Row is acknowledged as one of the most significant examples of early nineteenth-century commercial architecture remaining in New York State. The building, built between 1810 to 1812, consists of a row of Georgian-Federal style counting houses with façades made originally of soft, hand-molded bricks. The upper stories feature double-hung windows with splayed stone lintels. The roof windows on the Fulton Street side were later additions to the steeply-pitched roofs, and chimneys and party walls were built tall in order to inhibit fire from spreading across rooftops. Schermerhorn Row was restored by Jan Hird Pokorny Associates in 1983, and again in 2001 by Beyer Blinder Belle, when its interior along Fulton Street was renovated to internally link the buildings for the South Street Seaport Museum.

At the corner of Fulton and Front Street, you can see a modern interpretation of the 1849 Edward Laing building, designed by James Bogardus. This new building was built by Beyer Blinder and Belle in 1983. The original Edward Laing building was one of the first structures in the United States constructed with a cast iron facade. It was located in the Washington Market area of Manhattan, and in 1967, as part of an urban renewal project, it was dismantled, and planned to be rebuilt in an empty lot on 17-19 Fulton Street. After being dismantled, it was cataloged and stored in a vacant lot, but, in 1974, the Chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission ran into City Hall shouting “Someone stole one of my buildings!” Over a 3 week period, someone stole 2/3rd of the entire façade, never to be found.

If you continue on Fulton Street, and turn around on Water Street you'll see some of the best preserved remains of Greek Revival (207-211 Water Street) and Italianate Style architecture (213-215 Water Street) in New York.

The Thomson Warehouse, at 213-215 Water Street, was designed by the renowned New York City architect Stephen D. Hatch in 1868 for A. A. Thomson & Co. This Italianate Style cast-iron and stone warehouse was used for tins and metals. Before the Thomson Warehouse, this lot was occupied by two three-story buildings. The land on which they stood was originally part of a 1750 water lot grant, and until 1797, Water Street was the closest street to the water. In 1799, Front and Water Streets were considered to be among the principal streets in New York City.

This store and tenement building was designed by Carl F. Eisenbach for John N. Eitel in 1888. It is a very stunning red brick and terra cotta building with broad ground floor arches and foliate terra cotta ornament, especially on the tympanum above the residential entrance on Water Street. Look up: some terra cotta faces remain centered on the fourth floor terra cotta window lintels!

If you keep walking on Front Street, you'll pass the 1773 Capt. Joseph Rose House at 273 Water Street, and you'll reach the end of the street. The corner building is the Bridge Cafe. Possibly built in 1794 as a tavern, the Bridge Cafe is considered by many the oldest bar in the city, but not the oldest continually running bar in the city. The Cafe is also the only remaining wood frame building in the seaport district. Several fires destroyed a number of buildings here, so it is amazing it has survived. In the 1850s, this was known as the Hole in the Wall, a rough bar, home to a six foot tall female bouncer known as Gallus Mag.

Keep walking, and around the corner, you'll reach Peck Slip, a large public space that served as an active docking place for boats until 1810. It was filled with land by 1817. In more recent years the space was the former parking lot for the Fulton Fish Market, which was moved to the Bronx in 2005. On the northern side of Peck Slip you can see a ConEd power station, next and around the 1808 Jasper Ward house, facing South Street. The power station itself was designed to match the district. The mural, commissioned by ConEd in 1978, was made by renown muralist Richard Haas, and it is entitled "Peck Slip Arcade."

On the opposite side of Peck Slip, you'll see the Harriet Onderdonk Building, later known as Meyer’s Hotel. Built in 1873, this building was supposed to be a store, but was converted into a hotel by Henry Meyer. It was designed by architect John B. Snook, who among his many notable projects designed the original Grand Central Depot on 42nd Street in 1871 (the one the present Grand Central Terminal replaced in 1913), as well as many buildings in the Soho Cast-Iron District. Frequented by Thomas Edison, there is an argument that this was the first hotel and bar to have electric lighting. The original ConEd power station was located a few blocks away on Pearl Street. Famous guests reputed to have stayed at Meyer’s Hotel include Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill Cody, and outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Teddy Roosevelt was known to drop in at the bar on occasion for a pint while serving as the head of the New York City Police Department, supposedly looking for officers who indulged themselves while on duty.

On your way back to the beginning of our tour, you'll pass by the George Post Building, at the corner of Beekman and Front Street. This fine Romanesque Revival style building was designed by George B. Post for Schermerhorn descendant Ellen S. Auchmuty. Post, who trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition, also designed the New York Stock Exchange, Bronx Borough Hall, and the Fifth Avenue mansion of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. Look up and check out the tie-rods and the fish keystones. The façade is ornamented with sea motifs, a fitting theme given that its first occupants were businesses associated with the Fulton Fish Market. The four stories above the cast-iron ground floor are decorated with starfish tie-rod washers, fish keystones, and a cockle-shell roof cornice made of terracotta.

Our last stop is the Fulton Fish Market. Established in 1817, the Fulton Market moved from Peck Slip to Fulton Street in 1822, as a general food and supply market. By 1838 the Fulton Fish Market opened as a separate entity, in a simple wooden structure fronting South Street. The rear of the shed was built on pilings over the river, so that cargo could be unloaded directly from ship to shore.

The market buildings have changed many times, progressing from temporary structures to more permanent ones. In all, four different fish market buildings have called this same stretch of the East River home. The 4th and last at this location was the 67-year-old Fulton Fish Market Building on South Street, a center for wholesaling meat, poultry, produce, and seafood. It was demolished in 1950.