A street in New York City, USA, where the New York Stock Exchange and other major financial institutions are located. The road follows what once was the walled N boundary of the original Dutch colony.
Wall Street is a narrow street in lower Manhattan in New York City, running east from Broadway downhill to the East River.
The phrase "Wall Street" is also used as a metonym to refer to American financial markets and financial institutions as a whole. Most New York financial firms are no longer headquartered on Wall Street, but elsewhere in lower or midtown Manhattan, Fairfield County, Connecticut, or New Jersey. JPMorgan Chase, the last major holdout, sold its headquarters tower at 60 Wall Street to Deutsche Bank in November 2001.
History
The name of the street derives from the fact that during the 17th century, it formed the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement. The wall was created, and strengthened over time, as a defense against attack from various Indian tribes, New England colonists, and the British. In 1685 surveyors laid out Wall Street along the lines of the original stockade.
In the late 18th century, there was a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street under which traders and speculators would gather to trade informally.
In 1889, the original stock report, Customers' Afternoon Letter, became the The Wall Street Journal, named in reference to the actual street, it is now an influential international daily business newspaper published in New York City.
Decline and revitalization
The Manhattan Financial District is one of the largest business districts in the United States, and second in New York City only to Midtown.
Built in 1914, 23 Wall Street was known as the "House of Morgan" and for decades the bank's headquarters was the most important address in American finance. Shortly before the bomb went off a warning note was placed in a mailbox at the corner of Cedar Street and Broadway. American Anarchists Fighters. While theories abound about who was behind the Wall Street bombing and why they did it, after twenty years investigating the matter, the FBI rendered the file inactive in 1940 without ever finding the perpetrators. Some point to the fact that it was actually a government-funded project, constructed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey with the intention of spurring economic development in downtown. In some ways, it could be argued that the World Trade Center changed the nexus of the Financial District from Wall Street to the Trade Center complex. The attacks, however, contributed to the loss of business on Wall Street, due to temporary-to-permanent relocation to New Jersey and further decentralization with establishments transferred to cities like Chicago and Boston.
Wall Street itself and the Financial District as a whole are crowded with highrises by any standard of measure. Better access to the Financial District is planned in the form of a new commuter rail station and a new downtown transportation center centered on Fulton Street.
Wall Street today
To say that a corporation is a "Wall Street company" today does not necessarily mean that the company is physically located on Wall Street. Today, much of Wall Street's workforce tends to be made up of professionals working in the fields of law or finance who work for medium- to large-sized corporations.
Wall Street's culture is often criticized as being rigid. This is a decades-old stereotype stemming from the Wall Street's establishment's protection of their interests, and the link to the WASP establishment. Wall Street's establishment resists government oversight and regulation. There is, ironically, no longer really any need for Wall Street the institution to be located on Wall Street the street, except perhaps for prestige.
Since the founding of the Federal Reserve banking system, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the Financial District has been the point where monetary policy in the United States is implemented (although it's decided in Washington, D.C. The bank has a gold vault 80 feet (25 m) beneath the street.
Buildings
Wall Street's architecture is generally rooted in the Gilded Age, though there are also some art deco influences in the neighborhood. Landmark buildings on Wall Street include Federal Hall, and the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Broad Street.
Over the years, certain persons associated with Wall Street have become famous, even legendary. Representing the bull market economy, the sculpture was originally placed in front of the New
York Stock Exchange, and subsequently moved to its current location in Bowling Green.
Cultural influence
Wall Street vs. Main Street
As a figure of speech contrasted to "Main Street," the term "Wall Street" can refer to big business interests against those of small business and the working or middle class. The idea of "Main Street" conjures images up small town and suburban single-family homes and small businesses. While the phrase "Wall Street" is commonly used interchangeably with the phrase "Corporate America", it is also sometimes used in contrast to distinguish between the interests, culture, and lifestyles of investment banks and those of Fortune 500 industrial or service corporations. Mentioning Wall Street of years past conjures up images of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant businessmen seated around mahogany boardroom tables smoking cigars and discussing their holdings and making backroom deals. To labor unions, small businesses all over the country and the world, and even to the middle class, Wall Street culturally could easily serve as a symbol of aloofness to the concerns of every day people.
Wall Street, more than anything, represents financial and economic power. To Americans, Wall Street can sometimes represent elitism and power politics and cut-throat capitalism, but it also
stirs feelings of pride about the market economy. Wall Street, despite the inevitable corruption, became the symbol of a country and economic system that many Americans see as having developed
not through colonialism and plunder, but through trade, capitalism, and innovation.
In literature and popular culture
Herman Melville's classic short story Bartleby the Scrivener is subtitled A Story of Wall Street and provides an excellent portrayal of a kind and wealthy lawyer's struggle to reason with that which is unreasonable as he is pushed beyond his comfort zone to "feel" something real for humanity.
In William Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury, Jason Compson hits on other perceptions of Wall Street: after finding some of his stocks are doing poorly, he blames the Jews.
Wall Street was the subject of a 1970s pop song, "Wall Street Shuffle" by 10cc.
The film Wall Street exemplifies many popular conceptions of Wall Street, being a tale of shady corporate dealings and insider trading.
In Godzilla , Godzilla walks down Wall Street after stomping through Fulton Fish Market.
In the Star Trek universe, the Ferengi, an ultra-capitalist race of extraterrestrials, regularly make religious pilgrimages to Wall Street (as it exists in that universe), since they value similar traits in other species.
Similar institutions
The financial clout of Wall Street is most rivaled only by:
London's "Square Mile," the financial heart of the United Kingdom Tokyo's financial institutionsSmaller international rivals include:
Mumbai, Dalal Street Frankfurt, nicknamed "Mainhattan" (for Manhattan on the river Main) because it is the center of the German Economy and has many highrise buildings Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California, is the heart of the venture capital industry. I.I Chundrigar Road, Karachi - Known as "The Wall Street of Pakistan" Makati City (the Philippines' financial center) Avenida Paulista, São Paulo, the economic hub of South AmericaIn North America, the nearest rivals are:
commodity exchange markets in Chicago, Illinois, USA, most notably the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the CME is listed on the New York Stock Exchange) Historically, the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco was the major exchange on the West Coast, although its been replaced entirely by electronic trading Bay Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Canada's financial heart)
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