Wall Street isn’t just a street; it is an area in New York City that is known as the financial district. Its reputation began with traders gathering and working in the area during the Revolutionary War, and it grew tremendously from there.Now, Wall Street is home to the largest stock exchange in the world, The New York Stock Exchange, and many, many other important financial businesses. It is an important area geographically, financially and politically.
Wall Street is called by that name because in 1653, there was actually a wall there. It was a 12-foot-high wooden wall built along the northern edge of the Dutch colony New Amsterdam by Peter Stuyvesant for the Dutch West India Company to protect the colony from the British and other local threats. The Dutch called it de Waal Straat, and even after the British dismantled the wall, the name for the area stuck.
Here are some other facts about Wall Street:
• Wall St. is eight blocks from Broadway to South Street and is about a half mile long.
• It is the second-largest Global Financial Center in the World; London is first.
• Trading begins every morning at 9:30 a.m. with an opening bell.
• Trading ends every afternoon at 4 p.m. with the closing bell.
• Famous people are often invited to ring the bells.
• George Washington’s inauguration in 1789 took place on the balcony of Federal Hall in Wall Street.
• The busiest corner of the district is the intersection of Wall and Broad Street.
• There are 2,764 listed securities in the New York Stock Exchange, the largest in the world.
• The stock exchange has grown from 533 seats in 1868 to 1,366 seats now.
• The New York Stock Exchange was not the first stock exchange in America; the Philadelphia Stock Exchange was founded in 1790.
• The first listed company on the New York Stock Exchange was the Bank of New York.
