New Market and Head House
- City
- Philadelphia, PA
New Market, later known as Head House or the Second Street Market, has stood on South 2nd Street in Society Hill since 1745, when Philadelphia mayor Edward Shippen and merchant Joseph Wharton established it on Lombard Street to compete with the older market on High Street. It's one of the oldest surviving market buildings of its type in the country, and the surviving portion — once part of a much longer structure that reached all the way to South Street — was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
the building
The Shambles. The market originally consisted of sixteen open stalls set beneath a gable roof and arched ceiling, carried on two rows of brick pillars — an open-air space known as the Shambles that by 1797 had grown south to a firehouse on South Street, since demolished, and eventually north to Pine Street as well.
significance
The surviving section of New Market was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and anchors the Head House Square historic district; it is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
nearby
- Head House Square
- St. Peter's Episcopal Church
- Society Hill Towers
- Hill-Physick-Keith House
- Powel House
- Merchants' Exchange Building