New Amsterdam , from 1660. (The bottom left corner is approximately south, while the top right corner is approximately north.) The fort eventually gave the name to
The Battery, the large street leading from the fort later became known as
Broadway, and the city wall (right) possibly gave the name to
Wall Street. What is now the Financial District was once part of
New Amsterdam, situated on the strategic southern tip of the island of Manhattan. New Amsterdam was derived from
Fort Amsterdam, meant to defend the
fur trade operations of the
Dutch West India Company in the North River (
Hudson River). In 1624, it became a provincial extension of the
Dutch Republic and was designated as the capital of the province of
New Netherland in 1625. By 1655, the population of New Netherland had grown to 2,000 people, with 1,500 living in New Amsterdam. By 1664, the population of New Netherland had skyrocketed to almost 9,000 people, 2,500 of whom lived in New Amsterdam, 1,000 lived near
Fort Orange, and the remainder in other towns and villages. In 1664 the English took over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York City.
19th and 20th centuries In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the
corporate culture of New York was a primary center for the construction of
early skyscrapers, and was rivaled only by
Chicago on the American continent. There were also residential sections, such as the Bowling Green section between Broadway and the
Hudson River, and between
Vesey Street and the Battery. The
Bowling Green area was described as "Wall Street's
back yard" with poor people, high
infant mortality rates, and the "worst housing conditions in the city". As a result of the construction, looking at New York City from the east, one can see two distinct clumps of tall buildings—the Financial District on the left, and the taller
Midtown neighborhood on the right. The
geology of Manhattan is well-suited for tall buildings, with a solid mass of
bedrock underneath Manhattan providing a firm foundation for tall buildings. Skyscrapers are expensive to build, but the scarcity of land in the Financial District made it suitable for the construction of skyscrapers. The address of
23 Wall Street, the headquarters of
J. P. Morgan & Company, known as
The Corner, was "the precise center, geographical as well as metaphorical, of financial America and even of the financial world". The area was subjected to numerous threats; one bomb threat in 1921 led to detectives sealing off the area to "prevent a repetition of the Wall Street bomb explosion".
Late-20th century growth in March 2001 During most of the 20th century, the Financial District was a business community with practically only offices which emptied out at night. Writing in
The Death and Life of Great American Cities in 1961, urbanist
Jane Jacobs described a "deathlike stillness that settles on the district after 5:30 and all day Saturday and Sunday". But there has been a change towards greater residential use of the area, pushed forwards by technological changes and shifting market conditions. The general pattern is for several hundred thousand workers to commute into the area during the day, sometimes by sharing a
taxicab from other parts of the city as well as from
New Jersey and
Long Island, and then leave at night. In 1970 only 833 people lived "south of Chambers Street"; by 1990, 13,782 people were residents with the addition of areas such as
Battery Park City Battery Park City was built on 92 acres of landfill, and 3,000 people moved there beginning about 1982, but by 1986 there was evidence of more shops and stores and a park, along with plans for more residential development.
Construction of the World Trade Center began in 1966, but the
World Trade Center had trouble attracting tenants when completed. Nonetheless, some substantial firms purchased space there. Its impressive height helped make it a visual landmark for drivers and pedestrians. In some respects, the nexus of the Financial District moved physically from Wall Street to the World Trade Center complex and surrounding buildings such as the
Deutsche Bank Building,
90 West Street, and
One Liberty Plaza. Real estate growth during the latter part of the 1990s was significant, with deals and new projects happening in the Financial District and elsewhere in Manhattan; one firm invested more than $24 billion in various projects, many in the Wall Street area. In 1998, the NYSE and the city struck a $900 million deal which kept the
NYSE from moving across the river to
Jersey City; the deal was described as the "largest in city history to prevent a corporation from leaving town". A competitor to the NYSE,
NASDAQ, moved its headquarters from
Washington to New York. is at the lower middle, slightly to the right. Circa 2006 In 1987, the stock market plunged There were reports that the number of residents increased by 60% during the 1990s to about 25,000 although a second estimate (based on the 2000 census based on a different map) places the residential population in 2000 at 12,042. By 2001 there were several grocery stores, dry cleaners, and two grade schools and a top high school. When the
World Trade Center was destroyed on
September 11, 2001, it left an architectural void as new developments since the 1970s had played off the complex aesthetically. The attacks "crippled" the communications network. Tax incentives provided by federal, state and local governments encouraged development. A new
World Trade Center complex centered on
Daniel Libeskind's
Memory Foundations was built after the 9/11 attacks. The centerpiece, which is now a tall structure, opened in 2014 as the
One World Trade Center.
Fulton Center, a new transit complex intended to improve access to the area, opened in 2014, followed by the
World Trade Center Transportation Hub in 2016. Additionally, in 2007, the
Maharishi Global Financial Capital of New York opened headquarters at
70 Broad Street near the NYSE, in an effort to seek investors. By the 2010s, the Financial District had become established as a residential and commercial neighborhood. Several new skyscrapers such as
125 Greenwich Street and
130 William were being developed, while other structures such as
1 Wall Street, the
Equitable Building, and the
Woolworth Building were extensively renovated. Additionally, there were more signs of dogwalkers at night and a 24-hour neighborhood, although the general pattern of crowds during the working hours and emptiness at night was still apparent. There were also ten hotels and thirteen museums in 2010. By 2010 the residential population had increased to 24,400 residents. and the area was growing with luxury high-end apartments and upscale retailers. On October 29, 2012, New York and New Jersey were inundated by
Hurricane Sandy. Its 14-foot-high storm surge, a local record, caused massive street flooding in many parts of Lower Manhattan. Power to the area was knocked out by a transformer explosion at a
Con Edison plant. With mass transit in New York City already suspended as a precaution even before the storm hit, the New York Stock Exchange and other financial exchanges were closed for two days, re-opening on October 31. From 2013 to 2021, nearly two hundred buildings in the Financial District were converted to residential use. Furthermore, between 2001 and 2021, the proportion of companies in the area that were in the finance and insurance industries declined from 55 to 30 percent. ==Demographics==