Wall Street
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For other uses, see Wall Street (disambiguation).
Image:View of Wall Street.jpg Image:Photos NewYork1 032.jpg
Wall Street is the name of a narrow street in lower Manhattan running east from Broadway downhill to the East River. Considered to be the historical heart of the Financial District, it was the first permanent home of the New York Stock Exchange.
The phrase "Wall Street" is also used to refer to American financial markets and financial institutions as a whole. Interestingly, most New York financial firms are no longer headquartered on Wall Street, but elsewhere in lower or midtown Manhattan, Greenwich, Connecticut, or New Jersey. JPMorgan Chase, the last major holdout, sold its headquarters tower at 60 Wall Street to Deutsche Bank in November 2001.
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History
Image:Wall street 1867.jpg The name of the street derives from the fact that during the 17th century, it formed the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement where the Dutch had constructed a crude wall of timber and earthwork in 1652. The wall was ostensibly meant as a defense against attack from Lenape Indians, New England colonists, and the British, but it was never tested in battle. The wall was dismantled by the British in 1699.
The Wall Street Journal, named in reference to the actual street, is an influential international daily business newspaper published in New York City. For many years, it had the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, although it is currently second to USA Today. It is owned by Dow Jones & Company.
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. This was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange.
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. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the corporate culture of New York was a primary center for the construction of skyscrapers (rivaled only by Chicago). The Financial District, even today, actually makes up a distinct skyline of its own, separate from but and not soaring to quite the same heights as its counterpart a few miles to the north (New York City actually has three distinct skylines, the third being Brooklyn Heights).
Image:Wallstreetbmb.jpg 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. At noon, on September 16, 1920, a bomb exploded in front of the bank, killing 40 and injuring 400. Shortly before the bomb went off a warning note was placed in a mailbox at the corner of Cedar Street and Broadway. The warning read: Remember we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be sure death for all of you. 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.
By the Great Depression, new development of the Financial District had stagnated. The construction of the World Trade Center was one of the few major projects undertaken during the last three quarters of the 20th Century. Financially, it was never terribly successful. 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. All the tools necessary to international trade were to be housed in the complex. However, at the beginning much of the space remained vacant.
Nonetheless, some large and powerful firms did purchase space in the World Trade Center. Further, it attracted other powerful businesses to the immediate neighborhood. 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. When the World Trade Center was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, it left somewhat of an architectural void as new developments since the 1970s had played off the complex aesthetically. 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. Further, the loss of the World Trade Center has actually spurred development in the Financial District on a scale that hasn't been seen in decades. This is in part due to tax incentives provided by the federal, state and local governments to encourage development. A new World Trade Center complex, centered on Daniel Liebeskind's Memory Foundations plan, is in the early stages of development and one building has already been replaced. The centerpiece to this plan is the 1,776-foot tall Freedom Tower. New residential buildings are already sprouting up, and buildings that were previously office space are being converted to residential units, also benefiting from the tax incentives. 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
Image:Wall street bull.jpg To say that a corporation is a "Wall Street company" today doesn't necessarily mean that the company is physically located on Wall Street. It more likely means that the firm deals with financial services; such a firm could be headquartered in many places across the globe. 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. Many of the nearby businesses are local companies and chain stores that cater to the tastes of professionals and to the needs of the workforce. Most people who work in the Financial District commute in from suburbs in Greenwich, Connecticut; Pennsylvania; or the northern Hudson Valley.
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. More recent criticism has centered on structural problems and lack of a desire to change well-established habits. Wall Street's establishment resists government oversight and regulation. At the same time, New York City has a reputation as a very bureaucratic city, which makes entry into the neighborhood difficult or even impossible for middle class entrepreneurs. Finally, the New York Stock Exchange itself remains the last great holdout where trading is done entirely on the floor rather than electronically. 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. Stocks could easily be traded almost anywhere.
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. by the Federal Reserve Bank's Board of Governors). As such, New York State is today unique in that it's the only state that constitutes its own district of the Federal Reserve Banking system. This is perhaps partly owed to population distribution in the United States of the time, however. Until the 1960s, New York was the most populated state in the U.S.; it now ranks third, behind California and Texas. The NY Federal Reserve's president is the only regional Bank president with a permanent vote and is traditionally selected as its vice chairman. The bank has a gold vault 80 feet (25 m) beneath the street. This depository is the largest in the world, larger even than Fort Knox.
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.
- For a more complete list of buildings, see List of buildings in Lower Manhattan.
Personalities
Over the years, certain persons associated with Wall Street have become famous, even legendary. Although their reputation is usually limited to members of the stock brokerage/banking community, several have gained national and international fame. Some earned their fame for their investment strategies, financing, reporting, legal or regulatory skills, while others are remembered for their greed.
See List of personalities associated with Wall Street.
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. It is sometimes used more specifically to refer to research analysts, shareholders, and/or financial institutions such as investment banks. 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.
Perceptions
The Gilded Age architecture and culture of the time gave rise to many modern stereotypes about corporate culture that exist to this day, at least in the United States. Some of these stereotypes can perhaps be said to have existed well beyond their time. 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.
The older skyscrapers often were built with elaborate facades; such elaborate aesthetics haven't been common in corporate architecture for decades. The World Trade Center, built in the 1970s, was very plain and utilitarian in comparison (the Twin Towers were often criticized as looking like two big boxes, despite their impressive height).
Social and spiritual ramifications cannot be overlooked when examining Wall Street's aesthetic. Great buildings in past centuries, and throughout human history, often were centers of worship in the form of temples, or at least served primarily a cultural or political role. Museums, opera houses, cathedrals, fortifications, and seats of government were at times elaborate, but almost always built at the expense of the public for popular consumption, or at least to provide a service for a particular class of people (fine arts were once considered the province of the wealthy). This is true even in New York—one only needs to look at the elaborate institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera, or Saint Patrick's Cathedral, or even New York's relatively elaborate City Hall and neighboring municipal buildings. The architecture of the Financial District, by and large, was privately constructed and conveyed the message of America's success and growing might in the world economic community.
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
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.
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 institutions
Smaller international rivals include:
- Mumbai, Dalal Street
- Frankfurt, nicknamed "Manhattan" or "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.
- Makati City (the Philippines' financial center)
In 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)
See also
- Global settlement (2002)
External sources
- Robert Sobel The Big Board: A History of the New York Stock Market (1962)
- Robert Sobel The Great Bull Market: Wall Street in the 1920's (1968)
- Robert Sobel Inside Wall Street: Continuity & Change in the Financial District (1977)
External links
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