Wall Street

Wall Street is the head office of the capital markets in America. It spans over eight blocks and and became a symbol for America's financial institutions and economic power. Furthermore, “it has been portrayed alternatively as powerful, hot-shot, corrupt, greedy, excessive and bullish.” ¹

Wall Street started out as an actual wall, called “de Waal Straat”. In 1652, the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam (alias Manhattan island) built and erected a wooden wall functioning as a barricade, in order to protect themselves from a possible attack by England. ² In total, the wall was 9 feet (ca. 2,74 meters) tall and 2340 feet (ca. 713,23 meters) long and was equipped with cannons. It can be assumed that the labor of building the wall was done by slaves. In 1699 the wall was torn down for good. ³

In 1711, Wall Street was a location for the slave market.

1792, securty traders came together under a Buttonwood tree to resolve and sign the Buttonwood Agreement in order to prevent government interventions and keep outsiders from joining in. The signees moved their burros into the Tontine Coffee House (located on the corner of Wall Street and Water Street). Ten years later, “the board moved into the Merchants’ Exchange building at 55 Wall Street.” ⁴

The Great Fire of 1835 destroyed 700 buildings including the Tontine Coffee House as well as the Merchants’ Exchange building.

In 1867, the American Telegraph company (located in Wall Street since 1837), employed clerks doing transactions in order to send their information to brokers via telegraph.

1903: opening of New York's first Stock Exchange building.

Three major financial crashes (in 1929, in 1987 and in 2008) and the terrorism attack in 2001 had enormous effects on the market, shutting it down completely for several days.