The Financial District

The Dutch were the fi rst Europeans to settle Manhattan. To protect themselves from attacks, they built a strong wooden wall. Although it’s now long gone, this wall gave its name to a street in Lower Manhattan and the street, in turn, became synonymous with American capitalism. The street, of course, is Wall Street.

It’s easy to see why “Wall Street” means capitalism. The New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange are both in the Wall Street area. So are many stockbrokers, investment banks and other banks, and headquarters of many large corporations. There is also the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a branch of the national bank of the United States – and the only branch that buys and sells government securities.

On any weekday you can visit the New York Stock Exchange. The Exchange, which began with several merchants meeting under a tree on Wall Street, now has over 1,350 members. From the visitors’ gallery you can watch as trading goes on at a frantic pace below you.

Outside on the street, the pace is just as frantic (but only during working hours – the city’s nightlife is elsewhere). The area’s narrow streets and tall buildings can feel confi ning and can make the crowds seem scared.

To escape the commotion of Wall Street, you can visit the nearby South Street Seaport. The seaport is an open area of low buildings on the East River. In addition to many shops and restaurants, the seaport has a museum. You can tour old houses, ships, and shipyards – reminders of the days when New York was above all a port. At the seaport, you can also tour the Fulton Fish Market, where city restaurants buy their fish – if you can be there at five in the morning!

Appropriately, the very first business deal in Manhattan was made in what became the financial district. As every American schoolchild knows, the Dutch bought Manhattan from the Indians, for the ridiculously low price of 24 dollars worth of beads and trinkets.

From: FALK, R. Spotlight on the USA. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 34-35. (Adapted)