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Wall Street in New York City

Tuesday, 18 March 2025 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika
Category/Kategorie: General, New York City Reading Time:  6 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post Wall Street is a street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway in the west and South Street and the East River in the east. The term “Wall Street” has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry, New York–based financial interests, or the Financial District. Anchored by Wall Street, New York has been described as the world’s principal fintech and financial center.

The street was originally known in Dutch as Het Cingel (“the Belt”) when it was part of New Amsterdam during the 17th century. An actual city wall existed on the street from 1653 to 1699. During the 18th century, the location served as a slave market and securities trading site, and from 1703 onward, the location of New York’s city hall, which became Federal Hall. In the early 19th century, both residences and businesses occupied the area, but increasingly the latter predominated, and New York’s financial industry became centered on Wall Street. During the 20th century, several early skyscrapers were built on Wall Street, including 40 Wall Street, once the world’s tallest building. The street is near multiple subway stations and ferry terminals.

The Wall Street area is home to the New York Stock Exchange, the world’s largest stock exchange by total market capitalization, as well as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and commercial banks and insurance companies. Several other stock and commodity exchanges have also been located in Lower Manhattan near Wall Street, including the New York Mercantile Exchange and other commodity futures exchanges, along with the NYSE American. Many brokerage firms owned offices nearby to support the business they did on the exchanges. The economic impacts of Wall Street activities extend worldwide.

Wall Street’s architecture is generally rooted in the Gilded Age. The older skyscrapers often were built with elaborate facades, which have not been common in corporate architecture for decades. There are numerous landmarks on Wall Street, some of which were erected as the headquarters of banks. These include:

• Federal Hall National Memorial (26 Wall Street), built in 1833–1842. The building, which previously housed the United States Custom House and then the Subtreasury, is now a national monument.
• 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. It was formerly the J.P. Morgan & Co. headquarters 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 200 miles (320 km) of fiber-optic cable below ground.

Read more on nycgovparks.org – Mannahatta Park and Wikipedia Wall Street (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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