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Photo: Benoît Prieur, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons
The historic heart of the Financial District and the home of the New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street is a metonym for American big business, stock trading and the entire financial industry, although most New York financial firms are no longer headquartered on the street itself, but housed nearby in new offices, and some have moved to Jersey City. A narrow street running downhill from Broadway to the East River, Wall Street was named for the wall that was built here in 1652 to keep Manhattan's indigenous peoples out of the growing Dutch settlement. The wall was demolished by the British in 1699. By the late 18th century, traders and speculators would gather under a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street to trade informally - this was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange that was established in 1817.
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 with a length of just under 2,000 feet. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and its reports of NYSE-listed companies, financial markets of the United States, 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.
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Trump Building
A very impressive skyscraper with a green spire which was completed in 1930 and surpassed the height of the nearby Woolworth Building (see Manhattan/TriBeCa#See), making it the tallest building in the world until the Chrysler Building was completed just a month later (which in turn lost that title to the Empire State Building less than a year later). The building was leased by Donald Trump in 1995, hence its current name.
On this site on April 30, 1789, George Washington stood on a balcony overlooking Wall Street and was inaugurated as the first president of the United States. The old building on the site had been used as New York's city hall and had hosted some of the first congregations of the colonies in the lead-up to the American Revolution, such as the Stamp Act Congress. After the revolution the building, now Federal Hall, briefly housed Congress, the Supreme Court, and Executive Branch offices before the national capital moved to Philadelphia. The current building dates to 1842 and was used first as a Customs House, then later the US Sub-Treasury (millions of dollars of gold and silver were kept in the basement vaults). Today the building is maintained by the National Park Service as a museum dedicated to the history of the site. Guided tours of the building are available, or you can just walk in and look up at the rotunda and view some of the artifacts, such as the bible Washington used in his inauguration ceremony.
Located across from the Stock Exchange is this imposing office building which was constructed in 1914 and served as the headquarters of JP Morgan. The Wall Street Bombing of September 16, 1920 damaged the building, with shrapnel blasting several holes in the limestone facade. The holes are still there for any to see.
NYSE
A historic site, not least because of the Black Thursday crash of the Exchange on 24 October 1929 and the subsequent sell-off panic which started on Black Tuesday, 29 October, precipitating the worldwide Great Depression of the early 1930s. The present Exchange building opened in 1903, recognized from the first as an example of masterful architecture, with the six massive Corinthian columns across its Broad Street facade imparting a feeling of substance and stability and, to many, seeming the very embodiment of America’s growth and prosperity. The building has been closed to the public since 9/11.
formerly British Garden at Hanover Square
Suspended indefinitely for the public, tour for school groups available on request.