Portal:New York (state)/Selected article/11

Wall Street is a street in lower Manhattan island, New York City, USA. 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. Wall Street is also shorthand (or a metonym) for "influential financial interests" in the U.S., as well as for the financial industry in the New York City area. 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.

The name of the street derives from the fact that during the 17th century, Wall Street formed the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement. In the 1640s basic picket and plank fences denoted plots and residences in the colony. Later, on behalf of the Dutch West India Company, Peter Stuyvesant, in part using African slaves, led the Dutch in the construction of a stronger stockade. A strengthened 12 ft wall of timber and earth, fortified by palisades, was created by 1653. The wall was created, and strengthened over time, as a defense against attack from various Native American tribes, New England colonists, and the British. Archives • Read more...