Gordon Gekko’s New York: Wall Street by Design

With the release of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, 80s bad boy Gordon Gekko is officially in play and I thought now would be a good time to take a look at five landmarks from New York’s financial world.

Di Modica’s Charging Bull

Raging Bull
Style: Bronze Sculpture
Location: 25 Broadway

The iconic charging bull first appeared on December 15, 1989, beneath a Christmas tree in front of the New York Stock Exchange, in an act of guerrilla-style installation art. The artist, DArturo Di Modica called it a “Christmas gift to the people of New York” and a symbol of  “the strength and power of the American people following the 1987 stock market crash.”

Originally, police seized the sculpture and placed it an impound lot.  Public outcry led the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to install it two blocks south of the Exchange in the plaza at Bowling Green where it stands facing up Broadway. Today, tourists from around the globe visit the stately bovine, hoping that rubbing its nose and nether regions will bring them luck.

Federal Reserve Building of New York

Gold, gold, gold oh and some more gold
Style: Romanesque Revival
Location: 33 Liberty Street

We know money never sleeps, but if it did, the Federal Reserve Building of New York would be its boudoir.  Don’t let the staid Italianate facade fool you – inside is the largest known gold repository in the world.  Holding approximately 5,000 metric tons of gold bullion ($270 billion as of July 2010), the Federal Reserve doesn’t actually own the booty, it belongs to other foreign nations, central banks and random mysterious organizations.  Instead, it serves as guardian of the precious metal, which it protects at no charge.  This is a gesture of goodwill and probably some other lesser altruistic reasons, I am guessing.

All that gold is secured in a vault at the bottom floor of a three-story bunker of vaults, resting on Manhattan Island bedrock, one of the few foundations adequate to support the weight of all that bullion.  The massive walls surrounding the vault are steel-reinforced structural concrete. Entry is through a narrow ten-foot passageway cut in a delicately balanced, nine-feet-tall, 90-ton steel cylinder that revolves vertically in a 140-ton, steel-and-concrete frame.

Secured by an engineering feat similar to corking a champagne bottle, an airtight and watertight seal is achieved by lowering the cylinder three-eighths of an inch into the frame. The cylinder is then locked in place under “multiple control” as no one individual has all the combination pieces necessary to open the vault.

Trinity Church

Father of the National Bank Rests Here
Style: Gothic Revival
Location: 74 Trinity Place

This tiny church may be dwarfed by its towering neighbors, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in other ways.  Not only is Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, buried on the grounds – but Trinity Church is one of the largest landowners in New York City.

At one point in the early days of New York, the city wanted to extend Pine Street from river to river, which would have meant cutting through Trinity’s churchyard.  In a move that would’ve made Gekko proud, the church erected a monument to the Martyrs of the American Revolution, thus invoking the “no Revolutionary War monuments destroyed in the name of progress rule” and avoiding anyone trampling on their territory.

Alexander Hamilton Custom House

Taxing Other Continents Gets Fancy
Style: Beaux-Arts
Location: One Bowling Green

Before there was federal income tax, the primary source of revenue for the federal government was custom duty.  New York City, the country’s most active port,  has had a Custom House since the country’s founding in in 1781. Coincidentally this is the same place in 1626, where a group of Dutch settlers “purchased” Manhattan Island from Indians for about $24.00 worth of beads.

In 1899, the United States Department of the Treasury sponsored a competition to build a new U.S. Custom House in the part of lower Manhattan known as “Bowling Green.”  Winning architect, Cass Gilbert created a stunning Beaux Arts building, designed not only for tax collection, but also to show the greatness and grandeur of the United States.

Central to Gilbert’s design of the Custom House are the sculptures at the front entrance of the Custom House, representing four continents – Asia, America, Europe and Africa.  Created by artist Daniel Chester French,  the sculptures of these tax worthy continents were completed and installed in 1907 .