Admin

The park features several works of art, the most famous of which is the 70-foot tall sculpture Joie de Vivre

The park is popular in the holiday season as the trees and ground lights create a festive atmosphere. 

Created in 1968 as part of an agreement between the Manhattan borough leaders and United States Steel, this public park was among the areas damaged by the September 11th terrorist attacks. The park, like the rest of the surrounding structures and plazas, was rebuilt and now offers a blend of tourists and business people enjoying the space together. The park was the site of numerous public ceremonies in the years following the attack, and it reopened in the spring of 2006 following an $8 million renovation project. The park was also the location of the Occupy Wall Street protests that saw activists encamped throughout the park until they were evicted by the city police in November 2011. The park is named in honor of John E. Zuccotti, the chairman of Brookfield Ofice Properties that acquired the real estate from US Steel. The park features the 70-foot tall outdoor sculpture Joie de Vivre by artist Mark di Suvero.

Zuccotti Park

This short tour includes stops at historic banks, stock exchanges, and government buildings related to the city of New York becoming the center of American finance by the early 1900s. The tour includes iconic statues like Charging Bull and Fearless Girl as well as the Empire Building, Trinity Church, the American Stock Exchange, Liberty Tower, Federal Hall, the New York Stock Exchange, and the American Museum of Finance.  

On Monday October 19, 1987, stock markets across the world collapsed suddenly and precipitously. In the United States, on what would henceforth be referred to as “Black Monday,” the stock market crashed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly twenty-three percent of its total value over the course of the trading day. It was the largest one-day stock market decline in history, even greater than the stock market crash of the fall of 1929, which preceded the Great Depression.  Soon after “Black Monday,” Italian-American sculptor Arturo Di Modica went to work creating a statue that would symbolize American resiliency and inspire hope for the future in the wake of the unprecedented stock market downturn. After two years of hard work and more than $350,000 of his own money, the result was Charging Bull, a sixteen-foot-long, eleven-foot-tall, seven-thousand-pound (3.5-ton) bronze bull. Late on the night of December 15, 1989, Di Modica and his accomplices transported the statue on a flatbed truck and placed it under a sixty-foot-tall Christmas tree that stood in front of the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan. Before leaving the scene, Di Modica and his men scattered leaflets informing readers about his creation. While many people arriving for work the next morning were delighted to see the piece of guerrilla art, Dick Grasso, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, was not. He spent the entire day attempting to remove it, finally succeeding in hiring a truck to haul it away. The truck deposited the statue in an impound lot in Queens, where it seemed destined to rot. Meanwhile, increasing public outcry over the statue’s removal impelled New York City Parks Department commissioner, Henry J. Stern, to act. He arranged for the bronze bull to be temporarily placed in Bowling Green, a small public park in Lower Manhattan and the closest one to Wall Street. On December 20, only four days after the statue was removed from the front of the New York Stock Exchange, city workers installed it in the park. The following day, Stern officially unveiled it. Despite the fact that Bowling Green was intended originally to serve as its temporary home, the bronze statue remains in the park to this day and has become one of the most significant tourist attractions in Lower Manhattan.  Over the years, Charging Bull has witnessed protests, suffered vandalism, and survived attempts by public officials to relocate it. In 2011, members of the Occupy Wall Street movement gathered around the bronze statue for weeks to protest economic inequality. In September 2019, a man attacked the sculpture with a steel-reinforced banjo, damaging one of its horns. The following month, climate-change protestors doused the statue in fake blood. In response to the episodes of vandalism, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio proposed relocating the bronze sculpture, citing public safety concerns. Public outcry followed. Joining in on the loud opposition to the mayor’s proposal was Di Modica himself. In June 2020, the Public Design Commission of New York, the city government agency that oversees the placement of works of architecture and art on city-owned property, rejected Mayor de Blasio’s proposal.

Created by Italian-American sculptor Arturo Di Modica following the stock market crash of 1987, the bronze statue symbolizes American resiliency and strives to inspire hope for the future. A piece of guerrilla art, the sculpture measures sixteen feet in length, eleven feet in height, and weighs seven thousand pounds. Late on the night of December 15, 1989, Di Modica and his accomplices transported the statue on a flatbed truck and placed it in front of the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan. The following day, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange had it removed. Increasing public outcry over the statue’s removal, however, impelled New York City Parks Department commissioner Henry J. Stern to arrange for the bronze bull to be temporarily placed in Bowling Green, a small public park in Lower Manhattan and the closest one to Wall Street. On December 20, only four days after the statue was removed from the front of the New York Stock Exchange, city workers installed it in the park. The following day, Stern officially unveiled it. Despite the fact that Bowling Green was intended originally to serve as its temporary home, the bronze statue remains in the park to this day and has become one of the most significant tourist attractions in Lower Manhattan. Over the years, the sculpture has witnessed protests, suffered vandalism, and survived attempts by public officials to relocate it.

Charging Bull

In 1853,
Orlando Potter, a lawyer from Massachusetts, moved to New York City to offer
his services in developing a sewing machine business. Potter quickly became a
prominent member of high society in New York City, known to be an incredibly
wealthy man. Potter died in 1894, and his estate commissioned the construction
of the Empire Building in 1895. Architects
Francis Kimball and George Thompson worked to design the building, and
construction on it began in 1895. The construction took several years to
complete, and in 1898, the building was finished. Several years after the
building’s construction, the newly formed United States Steel Corporation
became the building’s primary tenant, and it would remain the building’s single
largest tenant for 75 years.Initially, the United States Steel Corporation only rented out
portions of the Empire Building from the Potter Estate, and the building was a
source of pride to the family of the late Orlando Potter. However, in 1919, the
Potter family fell into financial troubles, and by this point in time, the
United States Steel Corporation had gained some extensive momentum as a
corporation and an impressive amount of capital. As a
result, the Potter Estate decided to sell the building to the United States
Steel Corporation, which benefitted both parties immensely. Decades later, the
corporation sold the building in 1973 but remained in the building until the
1980s. &nbsp;On June 25, 1996, it was designated as a New York City Landmark,
and in 1997, it was purchased and converted into an apartment complex. One year
later, on August 28, 1998, it was added to the National Register of Historic
Places.







&nbsp;

The Empire Building is a historic skyscraper building located in Manhattan’s Financial District. The building is built on the site of an office building that was constructed in 1859. Completed in 1898, the Empire Building was the headquarters of the United States Steel Corporation from the founding of the corporation in 1901 until 1976. It was designated as a New York City Landmark in June of 1996, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in August of 1998.

Empire Building, Manhattan 

In 1696, the Anglican community purchased land in Lower Manhattan to construct a new church with the approval of Governor Benjamin Fletcher. The first Trinity Church was constructed in 1698. The first minister was William Vesey who served for 49 years. In 1705, the parish's land holdings were increased to 215 acres by Queen Anne of England. During the American Revolutionary War, New York City became a British military and political base. As a result, the clergy of the church were required to be Loyalists. The church was burned down in the Great New York City Fire of 1776, which destroyed almost one-third of the city because most of the firemen in the city had gone to serve with General Washington. Many people thought the fire had been deliberately set because at that time New York City was facing the possibility of being captured by the British, and by burning down the city, the British would gain nothing. After the war, in 1784, the New York state legislature ratified the charter of Trinity Church but deleted any reference to being loyal to the King of England. The second Trinity Church was constructed in 1790, but it survived for less than 50 years. It was torn down after the winter of 1838 because of damage cause by severe snows that winter.     The current Trinity Church, which is the third Trinity Church, was constructed in 1846. The building’s Gothic Revival architecture was designed by architect Richard Upjohn. It was the tallest building in New York City until 1890. Trinity Church also withstood the 9/11 attack. After the collapse of the towers, the church served as a refuge. Trinity Church was designated as a National Historic Landmark on December 8, 1976.     Trinity Church is associated with three burial grounds: Trinity Churchyard, Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, and the Churchyard of St. Paul's Chapel. The first one to open was the Trinity Churchyard in 1697. Since then, those burial grounds have been the final resting spots for many historic figures, such as Alexander Hamilton, Robert Fulton, John Adams Dix, and Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens.     The following video was produced by the Library of Congress using footage taken from film produced in 1903. The film shows a view of traffic looking north on Broadway at the intersection of Wall Street, just in front of the Trinity Church. As a way to get a feel for the changes that have occurred over time, stand at this intersection and look north, holding your mobile device against the modern landscape while playing the video below.

The current church is the third Trinity Church that was constructed in 1846. The history of this church dates back to the founding of its Episcopal parish in 1697. Trinity Church was established by royal charter and became the first Anglican Church in New York. Inside this historic church is the Trinity Museum with exhibits about the history of Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel, another historic church that is also a member of the parish. Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel are surrounded by a number of historic monuments and burial plots.

Trinity Church and Cemetery, New York City

<div>

In the early 1900s, stock brokers that were not affiliated
with the New York Stock Exchange would buy and sell stocks and securities
outside of centralized buildings. Instead they conducted business on curbsides and
in coffee shops and other public buildings, due to the high prices of membership
to official stock exchange businesses. Trading on the Curb became increasingly
common from 1910 until 1918, whether it was old hat for seasoned stock brokers,
or if it served as a proving ground for newcomers. In an effort to foster unity
and trust among the curb brokers, E. R. McCormick proposed a plan to move the business
of the Curb into a building, and the proposal was approved in 1919. A site was
scoped out adjacent to Trinity Place and Greenwich Street, and in January of
1920, construction began on the New York Curb Exchange Building. The Building
was completed the next year, and business flourished on the Curb for years.

In the years of the Great Depression, business dropped in
the Curb Exchange Building, reportedly from 476 million shares in 1929 to 43
million in 1940. In order to combat this, several floors of the Building were
leased to other organizations while the Stock Exchange continued below. In a
move made to reflect the Curb’s important financial role in the United States,
the Building’s name was changed to the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) on
January 5, 1953. Following this change, the AMEX saw a surge in business in the
1950s, and profits were double of any amount they had ever received, mainly
catering to stocks of smaller businesses. The AMEX was a true competitor to the
NYSE, and in the 1970s, the Board of Governors began an expansion program for
the AMEX Building, which resulted in the finished construction of a trading
mezzanine in 1982, although this did little to expand the space available in
the building. During this time, the AMEX Building was added to the National
Register of Historic Places in June of 1978.

Business continued in the AMEX Building until 2008, when it
merged with NYSE-Euronext, bringing together the two once-rival companies, and on December 1, 2008, the AMEX trading floor was moved to the New York 
Stock Exchange on Wall Street. In 2009,
the AMEX Building closed, and it has been vacant ever since.&nbsp;</div><div> </div>

The American Stock Exchange Building is the former headquarters of the American Stock Exchange. Previously known as the New York Curb Exchange Building, the American Stock Exchange Building was an early hub for stock and security traders in New York City until the New York Stock Exchange became the central trading center for the city in 2008. Since then, the building has remained unused and vacant.

American Stock Exchange

When the Singer Building was
opened in 1908, it held the record as the tallest skyscraper in the U.S. At 612
feet tall and forty-seven stories high, The Singer Building was a landmark of downtown Manhattan. Ernest Flagg, the Singer Building's
architect, originally designed the building to be a thirty-five story tower, but the
Singer Company wanted that height doubled.&nbsp;The entrance doorway was a 24-foot
high bronze grill. Inside the marble columnns, elevator doors, stair railings,
interior balconies, office doors, and many other structures were all fitted with
bronze. Thirty-eight tons of bronze were used, making this the trademark of The
Singer Building. The outside tower was designed with a facade of&nbsp;red brick and bluestone, a type of sandstone. Rising from the lower floors, the building was a narrow forty-seven story
high tower. The
executive offices covered the entire 34th floor, and there were many ornate&nbsp;rugs, custom-designed furniture, and exceptional woodwork.

Extremely tall buildings
offer a stunning view, but also&nbsp;offer a convenient way to commit&nbsp;suicide. Albert
Goldman, an agent for the Mutual Life Insurance Company, was one of the first
to do so. A.J. Bleecker, superintendent of the building, was unnerved by this
suicide and closed the tower to visitors for a few days. The second suicide was
Austin Adams, a 59-year-old wheelbarrow manufacturer, who threw himself
out of an office window. The tragedies of the suicides caused&nbsp;the Singer Building to draw unfortunate&nbsp;attention as it&nbsp;served as one of New
York’s foremost tourist attractions.&nbsp;On November 16, 1961, the Singer company
decided to move its headquarters north to midtown and put the
Singer Building on the market. &nbsp;William
Zeckendorf bought the real estate along with the rest of the block in hopes that
the New York Stock Exchange would relocate there. However, this failed because
of a general&nbsp;lack of interest in the small square footage of the narrow
tower. Many newspapers called it an “architectural giraffe." In 1964, the
building was purchased by United States Steel and marked for demolition.&nbsp;

&nbsp;By the 1960s, the building
was considered uneconomical because of its small interior dimensions. Although New York had created the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the building did not receive a
landmark designation. In August 1967, Alan Burham, director of the Commission, stated that if the building had been made a landmark, the city would have had to buy the building or find a buyer. The Singer Building was demolished in
1968, and at that time, the Singer Building was the tallest building to ever be destroyed. The structure soon became the site of the fifty-four story, 743 foot high
One Liberty Plaza. &nbsp;

The Singer Building, built between 1906 and 1908, was the tallest building in the U.S. from 1908-1909. The building was located at the intersection Broadway and Liberty Street. This building housed the famous Singer Sewing Machine Company and was owned by the Singer Manufacturing Company. This record breaking building was demolished in 1968.

The Singer Building (1908-1968)

Records indicate that before the Liberty Tower was
constructed, another building resided on the patch of land that Liberty Tower
now inhabits. The previous&nbsp;building, among other things, was the first headquarters of
the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) since it was founded in 1867. It also housed offices of the
New York Evening Post for a time. Records do not indicate when the first building was
torn down, but architect Henry Cobb designed the Liberty Building itself, and
its construction spanned from 1909 until 1910.&nbsp;Shortly after its opening,
Theodore Roosevelt housed his law firm in the office building. The history of
the building runs particularly deep in 1917, as an office was leased out in
order to act as cover for German spies in World War I. The intention of the spies
was to keep America from getting involved in the war, but the cover was exposed
in March of that same year, prompting America to declare war on Germany.
Following the German scandal, the building was entirely leased out by the
Sinclair Oil Company.

The building remained in use for commercial office space for
decades, and in 1979, it was renamed Liberty Tower and was renovated as residential space. Following this conversion, the Liberty Tower was
designated as a New York City Landmark on August 24th of 1982, and
it was soon after added to the National Register of Historic Places on
September 15th of 1983. Today, the Liberty Tower continues to serve
as a residential building for&nbsp;rental apartments.

Manhattan’s Liberty Tower, previously known as the Sinclair Oil Building, is a historic office building in Manhattan’s Financial District. Constructed between 1909 and 1910, the Liberty Tower was, for a time, the tallest building in the world. In August of 1982, it was designated as a New York City Landmark, and in September of 1983, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1979, architect Joseph Pell Lombardi converted the building into an apartment building, and it has served as such ever since then.

Liberty Tower (Sinclair Oil Building) New York City

The present day Federal Hall stands in the same location as the original City Hall that existed during colonial times. It was in that building where printer and journalist John Peter Zenger was tried for libel in 1733, after publishing views that criticized the royal governor. However, when Zenger's lawyer argued that the truth is a defense against libel, the jury decided that Zenger was, in fact, not guilty. This event would further help the people's case for liberty and freedom.    In 1765, the Stamp Act Congress took place in the City Hall. It was here where the delegates from the colonies protested their dissatisfaction with "taxation without representation." During this meeting, the Congress drafted the Declaration of Rights and Grievances. The document consisted of 13 points of the colonists' protests, the first united action by the colonies.    After the Revolutionary War, the nation searched for a location to establish a capital. New York City decided to hire architect Pierre L'Enfant to help remodel the old City Hall, and offered it to the national government. On April 30, 1789, at this location, George Washington took his first oath of office and was inaugurated as the first president of the United States. Federal Hall became home to the first Congress, Supreme Court, and Executive Branch offices. It was also where the Bill of Rights would be drafted, and eventually ratified.    In 1812, the building was demolished when the capital was moved south to Washington, D.C. The remains were sold for scrap, for around $425. A new building was built in its place using a Greek-revival style. This is the building that we currently see today. From 1842-1862, it served as the U.S. custom house for the Port of New York. Then, from 1862-1920, it served as the New-York sub-Treasury, storing up to 80% of the nation's wealth until the Federal Reserve was built in 1914.   In 1939 the Secretary of the Interior declared that the building was a National Historic Shrine, and in 1955 Congress renamed the building to Federal Hall, in honor of the previous building.

Federal Hall National Memorial is located at the former site of New York's city hall which was constructed in 1703 and later became the first seat of the United States government. The current building was completed in 1842 and is now operated by the National Park Service. The original city hall from the colonial era was the site of the famous trial of John Peter Zenger. In 1765, this was also where the Stamp Act Congress met with delegates from different colonies protesting their dissatisfaction with "taxation without representation." After the Revolutionary War, it was here that George Washington was inaugurated, and this is also the place where the Bill of Rights was proposed and ratified. Federal Hall served as the seat of government from 1789 until 1790 when the U.S. capital was moved to Philadelphia. The original building was demolished in 1812, and this building was constructed and opened for service in 1842 as a U.S. custom house. At the end of the Great Depression, the building began its transition to its current use as a heritage site. Federal Hall is now operated by the National Park Service with artifacts and tours that interpret the colonial era and early republic with an emphasis on the role played by the city of New York. 

Federal Hall

On May 17, 1792, twenty-four stockbrokers gathered outside 68
Wall Street under a buttonwood tree to sign an agreement that would establish
the rules for buying and selling bonds and shares of companies. The Buttonwood
Agreement, as it is known, is so named because the tree served as the regular
meeting place for these pioneers of Wall Street. The signers of the Buttonwood
Agreement drafted their first constitution on March 8, 1817, and named their
nascent organization the New York Stock &amp; Exchange Board.In 1863, this name was
shortened to its modern form, the New York Stock Exchange, which became known
as the NYSE, one of the best-known financial industry brands in the world.
Membership on the NYSE has been held as a valuable property since 1868. Until
the NYSE went both electronic and public in April 2006, the exchange was a
membership-only organization. Members could join the NYSE by purchasing
existing seats, which were limited to 1,366.Merging with the already publicly
traded Archipelago electronic stock exchange, the new company was called the
NYSE Group, Inc., and the seats of the NYSE translated into shares of publicly
traded stock. In 2008, NYSE Euronext welcomed the historic American Stock
Exchange into the world’s leading equities exchange group. Originally called
the "curb market" because its brokers traded outdoors in the street,
the Amex has been at the forefront of the U.S. financial markets over the
course of two centuries.





&nbsp;

The NYSE trading floor is located at 11 Wall Street and is composed of four rooms used for the facilitation of trading. A fifth trading room, located at 30 Broad Street, was closed in February 2007. The main building, located at 18 Broad Street, between the corners of Wall Street and Exchange Place, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978.

New York Stock Exchange

The mythical Santa Claus was modeled after a real-life Saint who became famous for his generosity. While most Europeans forgot the story, Dutch residents continued to revere "Sint Nikolass." New York City was founded by the Dutch and was originally named New Amsterday. &nbsp;The connection between the city and Santa Clause became even stronger when New York resident and author&nbsp;Clement Clarke Moore wrote "A Visit From Saint Nicholas" in 1822. The poem began with the now-famous line "Twas the night before Christmas," and with its popularity, the legend of Santa Claus spread throughout the city of New York by the early 1830s.&nbsp;

Remembered only by currency collectors who value its notes that featured Santa Claus, this historic bank operated on Wall Street throughout the second half of the 19th century. Historian Stephen Mihm found that the bank was established in 1853 with a capitalization of half a million dollars and operated until 1893. As a state-chartered bank, it issued its own currency notes in the years prior to the creation of federal notes. The bank was led by Caleb Barstow, who served as president from 1856 to 1874 and was remembered for his generosity. The bank's notes incorporate ships (the original Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of sailors), several images of Santa, and even one bill with early New York founder Peter Stuyvesant.

St. Nicholas Bank, 1854-1893

On the eve of International Women’s Day in early March 2017, State Street Global Advisors, an investment management firm headquartered in Boston, installed a roughly four-foot-tall bronze statue of a young girl opposite Charging Bull on the northern tip of Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan. Designed by Delaware-based sculptor Kristen Visbal, Fearless Girl depicts a defiant young girl, roughly four-foot-tall, with her hands on her hips, shoulders back, and a confident smirk on her face. An inscription on a bronze circular plaque at her feet reads: “Know the power of women in leadership. She makes a difference.” The statue is part of the company’s ongoing campaign to persuade other companies to add more women to their boards. After the statue’s installation, State Street Global Advisors sent a letter to the thousands of companies that compose the Russell 3000 index, encouraging them to diversify their boards.  In preparation for the statue’s installation, State Street Global Advisors obtained a seven-day permit from the City of New York. Fearless Girl, therefore, was originally meant to be a temporary art piece in Bowling Green. The sculpture, however, garnered national and global attention, and endeared itself to many New Yorkers. In response to the immense public support for the statue, the mayor’s office extended its permit. In late November 2018, city workers removed Fearless Girl from Bowling Green in preparation for her move to her new, permanent home in front of the New York Stock Exchange. In her stead, State Street Global Advisors installed a circular bronze plaque with two footprints that read: “Fearless Girl is on the move to The New York Stock Exchange. Until she’s there, stand for her.” The following month, executives of State Street Global Advisors, with the help of New York City Council members and representatives from the mayor’s office, unveiled the statue in front of the New York Stock Exchange during a public ceremony.  State Street Global Advisors’ gender diversity initiative, in fact, has sparked change in corporate boardrooms across the country. In 2017, as the firm’s CEO Cyrus Taraporevala pointed out in a 2018 interview with NBC News, one in four of the 3,000 largest companies in the United States did not have a single woman on their boards. By the end of 2018, Taraporevala claimed, 301 of those companies added a woman to their boards and twenty-eight others have plans to do so in the near future.  Despite strong public support for it, the statue has not been free from controversy. After the installation of Fearless Girl, Arturo Di Modica, creator of Charging Bull, criticized the sculpture, arguing that it was simply a marketing gimmick and that it unfairly vilified his work. In response, another artist sympathizing with Di Modica created a bronze sculpture of a small dog lifting its leg to urinate. In May 2017, in an act of protest, he placed his creation alongside Fearless Girl. Later that same year, a journalist for NPR reported that a U.S. Department of Labor investigation discovered that the firm that sponsored Fearless Girl, State Street Global Advisors, had underpaid both its African American and female executives.

Designed by sculptor Kristen Visbal, the bronze statue symbolizes female empowerment. Commissioned by State Street Global Advisors, an investment management firm headquartered in Boston, as part of its ongoing campaign to persuade other companies in the United States to add more women to their boards, the sculpture depicts a defiant young girl, roughly four-foot-tall, with her hands on her hips, shoulders back, and a confident smirk on her face. Originally installed as a temporary art piece opposite Arturo Di Modica’s iconic bronze bull in Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan, the statue was moved to its new, permanent home in front of the New York Stock Exchange in December 2018.

Fearless Girl

Known simply as 23 Wall Street, the buildings on the corner of
Wall and Broad Street have represented the epicenter of American capitalism for
over a century. The headquarters of J.P. Morgan and Co., originally Drexel,
Morgan &amp; Co., have been located here since its founding in 1873. Finished
in 1914, the four-story bank still stands today, although scarred by small pockmarks
from the infamous anarchist’s bomb attack that killed 38 people in 1920,
remembered as the Wall Street bombing.On September 16, 1920, one
hundred pounds of dynamite were hidden in a horse-drawn carriage stopped just
across the street from the headquarters of the J.P. Morgan bank. The
dynamite&nbsp;caused a massive explosion that literally rocked Wall Street for
blocks in all directions.



Thirty-eight people were
killed, and more than four hundred were injured.&nbsp;In the aftermath of the
attack, no one claimed responsibility, and despite an investigation spanning
three years, the perpetrators were never found. It is now believed that the
Galleanists, a group of Italian anarchists, led by Mario Buda, an associate of
famous anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were responsible. Until September 11,
2001, the Wall Street bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack in the history
of New York City. &nbsp;J. P. Morgan decided not to repair the damage, leaving
it as a symbolic gesture of strength overcoming destruction.&nbsp;

23 Wall Street, also known as "The Corner," is an office building situated in Manhattan's Financial District at the intersection of Wall Street and Broad Street. The structure was designed by the architectural firm of Trowbridge and Livingston. Completed in 1914 as the headquarters for the J.P. Morgan and Co., the four-story bank still stands today, although scarred by small pockmarks from the infamous anarchist’s bomb attack that killed 38. 

23 Wall Street, Former Headquarters of J. P. Morgan

Founded in
1794 by Alexander Hamilton, the Bank of New York opened its first building at
the Walton House in Lower Manhattan on June 9, 1784, only a few months after
the departure of British troops from American soil. In 1797, the Bank
commissioned a new headquarters at 48 Wall Street. This two-story Georgian
building served as the bank’s headquarters through the beginning of the 19th
century. Although the original building no longer stands, its cornerstone can
be seen at the current 48 Wall Street building.The Bank instructed architect Benjamin Wistar Morris to
incorporate something of the institution's Colonial history in the design. That
history is evident inside the main banking hall, where eight murals by J.
Monroe Hewlett illustrate the story of American commerce and the life of the
Bank of New York. From the outside, the building’s major Colonial reference can
be seen from a distance: a tower reminiscent of an 18th-century church, but
thirty stories up in the air—definitely the only Colonial tower in the downtown
skyline.The 30-foot-high main hall of the former Bank of New York
building became a home of the Museum of American Finance on January 11, 2008.
Before opening in its current location, the Museum of American Finance was
housed in the Standard Oil Building at 26 Broadway. Founded in 1988 by John
Herzog as the Museum of American Financial History, the Museum changed its name
to more accurately reflect its focus on American Finance.With more than 10,000 items in its permanent collection, the
Museum holds the world’s largest archive of financial documents and artifacts.
As an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum has access to all of
the Smithsonian’s collections as well as access to collections at other
museums. The Museum of American Finance also publishes a quarterly journal, Financial History, which reaches members
in all 50 U.S. states and 20 other countries.&nbsp;Visitors can see special
exhibits including “The Fed at 100,” which examine the nation’s central bank
and the role it has played throughout its history. Also on view is a jewel
encrusted 18-karat gold Monopoly set.







&nbsp;

The Museum of American Finance is the nation’s only independent museum dedicated to preserving, exhibiting and teaching about American finance and financial history. Housed in an historic bank building on Wall Street, the Museum’s magnificent grand mezzanine banking hall provides an ideal setting for permanent exhibits on the financial markets, money, banking, entrepreneurship, and Alexander Hamilton. With its extensive collection of financial documents and objects, and its seminars and educational programming, the Museum portrays the breadth and richness of American financial history, achievement, and practices. It occupies the former home of the Bank of New York, founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1784.

New York Banking and Stock Exchange Walking Tour

Zuccotti Park

Introduction

Images