Wall Street

Early years '', from 1660, showing the wall on the right side In the original records of New Amsterdam, the Dutch always called the street Het Cingel ("the Belt"), which was also the name of the original outer barrier street, wall, and canal of Amsterdam. After the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, they renamed the settlement "New York" and in tax records from April 1665 (still in Dutch) they refer to the street as Het Cingel ofte Stadt Wall ("the Belt or the City Wall"). This use of both names for the street also appears as late as 1691 on the Miller Plan of New York. New York Governor Thomas Dongan may have issued the first official designation of Wall Street in 1686, the same year he issued a new charter for New York. Confusion over the origins of the name Wall Street appeared in modern times because in the 19th and early 20th century some historians mistakenly thought the Dutch had called it "de Waal Straat", which to Dutch ears sounds like Walloon Street. However, in 17th century New Amsterdam, de Waal Straat (Wharf or Dock Street) was a section of what is today's Pearl Street. Fearing an over land invasion of English troops from the colonies in New England (at the time Manhattan was easily accessible by land because the Harlem Ship Canal had not been dug), he ordered a ditch and wooden palisade to be constructed on the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement. The wall was built of dirt and wooden planks, measuring long and tall and was built using the labor of both enslaved Africans and white colonists. In fact Stuyvesant had ordered that "the citizens, without exception, shall work on the constructions… by immediately digging a ditch from the East River to the North River, 4 to 5 feet deep and 11 to 12 feet wide..." And that "the soldiers and other servants of the Company, together with the free Negroes, no one excepted, shall complete the work on the fort by constructing a breastwork, and the farmers are to be summoned to haul the sod." The first Anglo-Dutch War ended in 1654 without hostilities in New Amsterdam, but over time the "werken" (meaning the works or city fortifications) were reinforced and expanded to protect against potential incursions from Native Americans, pirates, and the English. The English also expanded and improved the wall after their 1664 takeover (a cause of the Second Anglo-Dutch War), as did the Dutch from 1673 to 1674 when they briefly retook the city during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, and by the late 1600s the wall encircled most of the city and had two large stone bastions on the northern side. The wall and its fortifications were eventually removed in 1699—it had outlived its usefulness because the city had grown well beyond the wall. A new City Hall was built at Wall and Nassau in 1700 using the stones from the bastions as materials for the foundation. , located at the foot of Wall Street on the East River, Slavery had been introduced to Manhattan in 1626, but it was not until December 13, 1711, that the New York City Common Council made a market at the foot of Wall Street the city's first official slave market for the sale and rental of enslaved Africans and Indians. The market operated from 1711 to 1762 at the corner of Wall and Pearl Streets, and consisted of a wooden structure with a roof and open sides, although walls may have been added over the years; it could hold approximately 50 people. New York's municipal authorities directly benefited from the sale of slaves by implementing taxes on every person who was bought and sold there. In these early days, local merchants and traders would gather at disparate spots to buy and sell shares and bonds, and over time divided themselves into two classes—auctioneers and dealers. The idea of the agreement was to make the market more "structured" and "without the manipulative auctions", with a commission structure. 19th century . In the first few decades, both residences and businesses occupied the area, but increasingly, business predominated. "There are old stories of people's houses being surrounded by the clamor of business and trade and the owners complaining that they can't get anything done," according to a historian named Burrows. The opening of the Erie Canal in the early 19th century meant a huge boom in business for New York City, since it was the only major eastern seaport which had direct access by inland waterways to ports on the Great Lakes. Wall Street became the "money capital of America". Historian Charles R. Geisst suggested that there has constantly been a "tug-of-war" between business interests on Wall Street and authorities in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States by then. Generally during the 19th century Wall Street developed its own "unique personality and institutions" with little outside interference. Some of the companies included in Dow's original calculations were American Tobacco Company, General Electric, Laclede Gas Company, National Lead Company, Tennessee Coal & Iron, and United States Leather Company. When the average "peaks and troughs" went up consistently, he deemed it a bull market condition; if averages dropped, it was a bear market. He added up prices, and divided by the number of stocks to get his Dow Jones average. Dow's numbers were a "convenient benchmark" for analyzing the market and became an accepted way to look at the entire stock market. In 1889 the original stock report, ''Customers' Afternoon Letter, became The Wall Street Journal''. Named in reference to the actual street, it became an influential international daily business newspaper published in New York City. After October 7, 1896, it began publishing Dow's expanded list of stocks. At other times, city and state officials have taken steps through tax incentives to encourage financial firms to continue to do business in the city. A post office was built at 60 Wall Street in 1905. During the World War I years, occasionally there were fund-raising efforts for projects such as the National Guard. On September 16, 1920, close to the corner of Wall and Broad Street, the busiest corner of the Financial District and across the offices of the Morgan Bank, a powerful bomb exploded. It killed 38 and seriously injured 143 people. The perpetrators were never identified or apprehended. The explosion did, however, help fuel the Red Scare that was underway at the time. A report from The New York Times: 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". Regulation on the right. The majority of people are congregating in Wall Street on the left between the "House of Morgan" (23 Wall Street) and Federal Hall National Memorial (26 Wall Street). September 1929 was the peak of the stock market. October 3, 1929, was when the market started to slip, and it continued throughout the week of October 14. A few days later, on October 24, The growing national economy and prosperity led to a recovery during the 1960s, with some down years during the early 1970s in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Trading volumes climbed; in 1967, according to Time Magazine, volume hit 7.5 million shares a day which caused a "traffic jam" of paper with "batteries of clerks" working overtime to "clear transactions and update customer accounts". In 1973, the financial community posted a collective loss of $245 million, which spurred temporary help from the government. Reforms were instituted; the Securities & Exchange Commission eliminated fixed commissions, which forced "brokers to compete freely with one another for investors' business". In 1976, banks were allowed to buy and sell stocks, which provided more competition for stockbrokers. Since telecommunications costs were coming down, banks and brokerage firms could move away from the Financial District to more affordable locations. 21st century In 2001, the Big Board, as some termed the NYSE, was described as the world's "largest and most prestigious stock market". When the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001, the attacks "crippled" the communications network and destroyed many buildings in the Financial District, although the buildings on Wall Street itself saw only little physical damage. During this time Rockefeller Group Business Center opened additional offices at 48 Wall Street. Still, after September 11, the financial services industry went through a downturn with a sizable drop in year-end bonuses of $6.5 billion, according to one estimate from a state comptroller's office. To guard against terrorist attacks in the area, Wall Street from Broadway to William Street, and Broad Street from Beaver to Nassau was permanently closed to vehicular traffic and pedestrianized. The intersection of Broad and Wall in front of the NYSE, is a now public square. Vehicle traffic is only allowed for local residents and those with permission from local businesses and the city and only after being subject to a security search. Authorities built concrete barriers, and found ways over time to make them more aesthetically appealing by spending $5000 to $8000 apiece on bollards. Parts of Wall Street, as well as several other streets in the neighborhood, were blocked off by specially designed bollards: The Guardian reporter Andrew Clark described the years of 2006 to 2010 as "tumultuous", in which the heartland of America was "mired in gloom" with high unemployment around 9.6%, with average house prices falling from $230,000 in 2006 to $183,000, and foreboding increases in the national debt to $13.4 trillion, but that despite the setbacks, the American economy was once more "bouncing back". What had happened during these heady years? Clark wrote: looking west on Wall Street The first months of 2008 was a particularly troublesome period which caused Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to "work holidays and weekends" and which did an "extraordinary series of moves". It bolstered U.S. banks and allowed Wall Street firms to borrow "directly from the Fed" These efforts were highly controversial at the time, but from the perspective of 2010, it appeared the Federal exertions had been the right decisions. By 2010, Wall Street firms, in Clark's view, were "getting back to their old selves as engine rooms of wealth, prosperity and excess". 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement in Zuccotti Park, New York City. At the same time, the investment community was worried about proposed legal reforms, including the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act which dealt with matters such as credit card rates and lending requirements. The NYSE closed two of its trading floors in a move towards transforming itself into an electronic exchange. On October 29, 2012, Wall Street was disrupted when New York and New Jersey were inundated by Hurricane Sandy. Its storm surge, a local record, caused massive street flooding nearby. The NYSE was closed for weather-related reasons, the first time since Hurricane Gloria in September 1985 and the first two-day weather-related shutdown since the Blizzard of 1888. ==Architecture==

Wall Street's architecture is generally rooted in the Gilded Age. • 55 Wall Street, erected in 1836–1841 as the four-story Merchants Exchange, was turned into the United States Custom House in the late 19th century. An expansion in 1907–1910 turned it into the eight-story National City Bank Building. • 14 Wall Street, a 32-story skyscraper with a 7-story stepped pyramid, built in 1910–1912 with an expansion in 1931–1933. It was originally the Bankers Trust Company Building. • 23 Wall Street, a four-story headquarters built in 1914, was known as the "House of Morgan" and served for decades as the J.P. Morgan & Co. bank's headquarters and, by some accounts, was considered an important address in American finance. Cosmetic damage from the 1920 Wall Street bombing is still visible on the Wall Street side of this building. • 48 Wall Street, a 32-story skyscraper built in 1927–1929 as the Bank of New York & Trust Company Building. • 40 Wall Street, a 71-story skyscraper built in 1929–1930 as the Bank of Manhattan Company Building; it later became the Trump Building. • 1 Wall Street, a 50-story skyscraper built in 1929–1931 with an expansion in 1963–1965. It was previously known as the Irving Trust Company Building and the Bank of New York Building. • 75 Wall Street, built in 1987. It was built to be the U.S. headquarters of Barclays although several firms leased space in the building after it opened. It was converted in 2006–2009 into a mixed-use building with condominiums and a hotel. • 60 Wall Street, built in 1988. before becoming the U.S. headquarters of Deutsche Bank. It is the last remaining major investment bank headquarters on Wall Street. Another key anchor for the area is the New York Stock Exchange Building at the corner of Broad Street. It houses the New York Stock Exchange, which is by far the world's largest stock exchange per market capitalization of its listed companies, at US$28.5 trillion as of June 30, 2018. City authorities realize its importance, and believed that it has "outgrown its neoclassical temple at the corner of Wall and Broad streets", and in 1998, offered substantial tax incentives to try to keep it in the Financial District. Plans to rebuild it were delayed by the September 11 attacks. The exchange still occupies the same site. The exchange is the locus for a large amount of technology and data. For example, to accommodate the three thousand people who work directly on the exchange floor requires 3,500 kilowatts of electricity, along with 8,000 phone circuits on the trading floor alone, and of fiber-optic cable below ground. ==Importance==

of Lower Manhattan including Wall Street, the world's principal financial center As an economic engine In the New York economy Finance professor Charles R. Geisst wrote that the exchange has become "inextricably intertwined into New York's economy". As such, a falloff in Wall Street's economy could have "wrenching effects on the local and regional economies". Estimates vary about the number and quality of financial jobs in the city. One estimate was that Wall Street firms employed close to 200,000 persons in 2008. Another estimate (in 2006) was that the financial services industry makes up 9% of the city's work force and 31% of the tax base. An additional estimate from 2007 by Steve Malanga of the Manhattan Institute was that the securities industry accounts for 4.7 percent of the jobs in New York City but 20.7 percent of its wages, and he estimated there were 175,000 securities-industries jobs in New York (both Wall Street area and midtown) paying an average of $350,000 annually. The city's securities industry, enumerating 163,400 jobs in August 2013, continues to form the largest segment of the city's financial sector and an important economic engine, accounting in 2012 for 5 percent of private sector jobs in New York City, 8.5 percent (US$3.8 billion) of the city's tax revenue, and 22 percent of the city's total wages, including an average salary of US$360,700. The seven largest Wall Street firms in the 2000s were Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers. But as technology progressed, in the middle and later decades of the 20th century, computers and telecommunications replaced paper notifications, meaning that the close proximity requirement could be bypassed in more situations. A report described the migration from Wall Street: Nevertheless, a key magnet for the Wall Street remains the New York Stock Exchange Building. Some "old guard" firms such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch (bought by Bank of America in 2009), have remained "fiercely loyal to the Financial District" location, and new ones such as Deutsche Bank have chosen office space in the district. the direct economic impacts of Wall Street activities have gone beyond New York City. The employment in the financial services industry, mostly in the "back office" roles, has become an important part of New Jersey's economy. In 2009, the Wall Street employment wages were paid in the amount of almost $18.5 billion in the state. The industry contributed $39.4 billion or 8.4 percent to the New Jersey's gross domestic product in the same year. The most significant area with Wall Street employment is in Jersey City. In 2008, the "Wall Street West" employment contributed to one third of the private sector jobs in Jersey City. Within the Financial Service cluster, there were three major sectors: more than 60 percent were in the securities industry; 20 percent were in banking; and 8 percent in insurance. Additionally, New Jersey has become the main technology infrastructure to support the Wall Street operations. A substantial amount of securities traded in the United States are executed in New Jersey as the data centers of electronic trading in the U.S. equity market for all major stock exchanges are located in North and Central Jersey. A significant amount of securities clearing and settlement workforce is also in the state. This includes the majority of the workforce of Depository Trust Company, the primary U.S. securities depository; and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, the parent company of National Securities Clearing Corporation, the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation and Emerging Markets Clearing Corporation. Having a direct tie to Wall Street employment can be problematic for New Jersey, however. The state lost 7.9 percent of its employment base from 2007 to 2010 in the financial services sector in the fallout of the subprime mortgage crisis. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry, or New York–based financial interests. Wall Street has become synonymous with financial interests, often used negatively. During the subprime mortgage crisis from 2007 to 2010, Wall Street financing was blamed as one of the causes, although most commentators blame an interplay of factors. The U.S. government with the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailed out the banks and financial backers with billions of taxpayer dollars, but the bailout was often criticized as politically motivated, When large firms such as Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing were found guilty of fraud, Wall Street was often blamed, Interest groups seeking favor with Washington lawmakers, such as car dealers, have often sought to portray their interests as allied with Main Street rather than Wall Street, although analyst Peter Overby on National Public Radio suggested that car dealers have written over $250 billion in consumer loans and have real ties with Wall Street. When the United States Treasury bailed out large financial firms, to ostensibly halt a downward spiral in the nation's economy, there was tremendous negative political fallout, particularly when reports came out that monies supposed to be used to ease credit restrictions were being used to pay bonuses to highly paid employees. Analyst William D. Cohan argued that it was "obscene" how Wall Street reaped "massive profits and bonuses in 2009" after being saved by "trillions of dollars of American taxpayers' treasure" despite Wall Street's "greed and irresponsible risk-taking". Washington Post reporter Suzanne McGee called for Wall Street to make a sort of public apology to the nation, and expressed dismay that people such as Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein hadn't expressed contrition despite being sued by the SEC in 2009. McGee wrote that "Bankers aren't the sole culprits, but their too-glib denials of responsibility and the occasional vague and waffling expression of regret don't go far enough to deflect anger." In addition, images of Wall Street and its figures have loomed large. The 1987 Oliver Stone film Wall Street created the iconic figure of Gordon Gekko who used the phrase "greed is good", which caught on in the cultural parlance. In 2009, Stone commented how the film had had an unexpected cultural influence, not causing them to turn away from corporate greed, but causing many young people to choose Wall Street careers because of the film. A reporter repeated other lines from the film: "I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, Buddy. A player." In popular culture • Herman Melville's classic short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" (first published in 1853 and republished in revised edition in 1856) is subtitled "A Story of Wall Street" and portrays the alienating forces at work within the confines of Wall Street. • Many events of Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities center on Wall Street and its culture. • The film Wall Street (1987) and its sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) exemplify many popular conceptions of Wall Street as a center of shady corporate dealings and insider trading. • In the Star Trek universe, the Ferengi are said to make regular pilgrimages to Wall Street, which they worship as a holy site of commerce and business. • In 1997, The Beatnuts filmed the music video for "Off the Books" with Big Pun and Cuban Link on Wall Street, which was directed by Chris Robinson. • On January 26, 2000, the band Rage Against the Machine filmed the music video for "Sleep Now in the Fire" on Wall Street, which was directed by Michael Moore. The New York Stock Exchange closed early that day, at 2:52 p.m. • In the 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises, Bane attacks the Gotham City Stock Exchange. Scenes were filmed in and around the New York Stock Exchange, with the J.P. Morgan Building at Wall Street and Broad Street standing in for the Exchange. • The 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street is a dark comedy about Jordan Belfort, a New York stockbroker who ran Stratton Oakmont, a firm from Lake Success, New York, that engaged in securities fraud and corruption on Wall Street from 1987 to 1998. Personalities associated with the street Many people associated with Wall Street have become famous; although in most cases their reputations are limited to members of the stock brokerage and banking communities, others have gained national and international fame. For some, like hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, their fame is due to skillful investment strategies, financing, reporting, legal or regulatory activities, while others such as Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and Bernie Madoff are remembered for their notable failures or scandal. ==Transportation==

With Wall Street being historically a commuter destination, a plethora of transportation infrastructure has been developed to serve it. Pier 11 near Wall Street's eastern end is a busy terminal for New York Waterway, NYC Ferry, New York Water Taxi, and SeaStreak. The Downtown Manhattan Heliport also serves Wall Street. There are three New York City Subway stations under Wall Street: • Wall Street station at William Street () • Wall Street station at Broadway () • Broad Street station at Broad Street, with an entrance at Wall Street () No bus route runs on Wall Street. The two routes intersecting are the on Water Street and the downtown on Broadway. From 1934 to the mid-1980s, Wall Street Skyport served as a seaplane base that was primarily used by suburban commuters. ==See also==