Wall Street

Wall Street is a city street in lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs east from Broadway downhill to South Street on the East River, through the historical center of the Financial District. Wall Street was the first permanent home of the New York Stock Exchange, and over time Wall Street became the name of the surrounding geographic neighborhood.[1] Wall Street is also shorthand (or a metonymy) for "influential financial interests" in the U.S.[2]

Several major U.S. stock and other exchanges remain headquartered on Wall Street and in the Financial District, including the NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, NYMEX, and NYBOT. Many New York-based financial firms are no longer headquartered on Wall Street, but are in midtown Manhattan, the outer boroughs of the city, Long Island, Westchester County, Fairfield County, Connecticut, or New Jersey.

History

View in Wall Street from corner of Broadway, 1867. The building on the left was the U.S. Customs House at the time but is today the Federal Hall National Memorial.

View in Wall Street from corner of Broadway, 1867. The building on the left was the U.S. Customs House at the time but is today the Federal Hall National Memorial.

The name of the street derives from the fact that during the 17th century, it formed the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement. In the 1640s basic picket and plank fences denoted plots and residences in the colony.[3] Later, on behalf of the West India Company, Peter Stuyvesant, in part using African slaves,[4] led the Dutch in the construction of a stronger stockade. By the time war had developed with the English, a strengthened 12 foot wall [5] of timber and earth was created by 1653 fortified by palisades.[5] [3] The wall was created, and strengthened over time, as a defense against attack from various Indian tribes, New England colonists, and the British. In 1685 surveyors laid out Wall Street along the lines of the original stockade.[5] The wall was dismantled by the British in 1699.

Wall Street today

View up Wall Street from Pearl Street

View up Wall Street from Pearl Street

Steam stack on Wall Street crossing William Street

Steam stack on Wall Street crossing William Street

To say that a corporation is a "Wall Street company" today does not 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 Long Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the lower 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.

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.