The Financial District is my favorite neighborhood in Manhattan. The age and history here has a feel unmatched anywhere else. It’s got that old Boston-like history you can feel in your bones. When you live in the suburbs, it’s not often that you can see structures that take you back over 100 years…in the Financial District it’s everywhere you look.

Fraunces Tavern

Before the American Revolution, the building was one of the meeting places of the secret society, the Sons of Liberty. It served as a headquarters for George Washington, a venue for peace negotiations with the British, and housing federal offices in the Early Republic.

Fun fact: the small yellow bricks were imported from the Dutch Republic! Fraunces Tavern has been owned since 1904 by Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York Inc., which carried out a major reconstruction, and claim it is Manhattan’s oldest surviving building.

This is so NYC, I love it.

Stone Street Historic District

This Tudor-like beauty is part of the Stone Street Historic District. It was originally home to the Block Club, composed of businessmen in the banking and marine insurance industries. The big draws were the squash, racquet and handball courts, and a gymnasium on the fourth floor.

The Wall Street Inn was opened in 1999 by Frances and Leon Birnbaum. Survivors of the Holocaust, they immigrated to America in the 1950s. Leon started as a street peddler, and through their hard work and determination, they built a new life in New York. The website shares that Leon passed away in 2012, and Frances still lives in New York, enjoying her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Their family continues to own and operate The Wall Street Inn to this day.

Before being destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835, the building on this site was home to Congregation Shearith Israel. In 1730, they built the first structure in America designed and constructed to be a synagogue on the property that now houses The Wall Street Inn. The inn’s website has a great article on it’s history here.

Like NYC photos? Subscribe and get a short email when new photos are added. No spam ever!

First Name

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you’re human:

Wall and Broad Streets

“Get the biggest aluminum tree you can find Charlie Brown. Maybe painted pink!” – Lucy Van Pelt

There’s a great article on the Great Falls Tribune called “How Charlie Brown killed the aluminum Christmas tree”. Check it out here.

There’s always a grand Christmas tree by the New York Stock Exchange on Broad Street. The ornaments are giant, but then again, so is the tree. This group is standing around the “Fearless Girl” statue.

The bronze “Fearless Girl” statue was created by American artist Kristen Visbal in 2017. Visbal proclaimed it to be a symbol of the global women’s movement.

The Fearless Girl was commissioned to advertise for an index fund that planned to place it in front of the “Charging Bull” to call attention to the glass ceiling for women in the Wall Street community. The statue was installed right before International Women’s Day and was immediately a hit. I wish I had seen it when she was still staring down the bull!

I love the touch of Christmas on the stone buildings. NYC is definitely a new world flavor…but it’s been around long enough to carry me back to the past…where I imagine folks celebrating the holidays amidst the ever present hustle and bustle of Manhattan.

Behind the colonnades at 18 Broad Street is the main trading floor, a 72-foot-tall rectangular space.

The 110 ft. wide pediment contains eleven figures, including the centerpiece figure. Integrity protects the “works of man,” including figures symbolizing Science, Industry, Agriculture, Mining, and a figure that represents “Realizing Intelligence.” The statuary was designed by John Quincy Adams Ward (1830-1910) and Paul Wayland Bartlett (1865-1925). The carved marble weighed many tons and quickly began to weaken the structural integrity of the pediment itself, and pieces began falling to the ground. In 1936 the figures of prosperity were replaced with white lead-coated sheet copper replicas.

This is just so beautiful to me.

The Wall Street side of the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE is actually 3 buildings together. This section was added from 1920-1922. I’m so loving the greens and lights on the clean Georgia marble!

The northwest corner of the NYSE, 11 Wall Street. This site has been used for trading as far back as 1725. There are only 4 times that the exchange was closed for longer than a day:

1. In 1914, during WWI the NYSE closed down for 4.5 months.
2. In 1888 a weather related power outage closed it for a few days.
3. After 9/11, the exchange was closed for four days.
4. Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 closed the NYSE for two days.

Trinity Church

Looking west down Wall Street towards Trinity Church (1846), at 75 Broadway. The Christmas trees run along the Wall Street side of the NYSE.

Wall Street ends at Trinity Church (1846), 75 Broadway. At the time of its completion, the 281-foot spire was the highest point in New York until being surpassed in 1890 by the New York World Building. Crazy to imagine, isn’t it?

This Trinity Church (the 3rd on the site) was completed 1846. The first Trinity Church was destroyed in the Great NYC Fire of 1776, which started in the Fighting Cocks Tavern.

The dramatic and beautiful wrought-iron fence that surrounds the churchyard on all four sides:

Trinity Church’s 1697 charter, granted by King William III, states that Trinity is responsible for a rent of one peppercorn annually to the crown. On July 9, 1976, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visited Trinity Church. Vestrymen presented the Queen with a symbolic “back rent” of 279 peppercorns.

At the time of it’s completion in 1915, the Equitable Life Insurance Building had 20,000 employees working inside it. It was the first office building to feature passenger elevators. Some of it’s current tenants include include the NYC Department of City Planning, Macmillan Publishers, architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the NYC Housing Development Corporation, and Tower Research Capital.

Zuccotti Park

I always love walking Zuccotti Park. It’s not truly “park” like, but it’s well put together with plenty of places to sit and soak in the atmosphere of lower Broadway. It looks especially fine during the holiday season.

The view from under the 70-foot “Joie de Vivre” sculpture by Mark di Suvero at Zuccotti Park. In October 2011, during Occupy Wall Street, a man climbed Joie de Vivre, where he remained for several hours until he was escorted down by police.

The site of Zuccotti Park was the location of the first coffeehouse in colonial New York City, The King’s Arms which opened under the ownership of Lieutenant John Hutchins in 1696. It stood on the west side of Broadway between Crown (now Liberty) St. and Little Queen (now Cedar) Street.

On November 5, 1773, summoned by the Sons of Liberty, a huge crowd assembled outside the coffee house to denounce the Tea Act, and agents of the East India Trading Company who were handling cargoes of dutied tea. It was perhaps the first public demonstration in opposition to the Tea Act in the American colonies.

Zuccotti Park was created in 1968 by Pittsburgh-based United States Steel, after the property owners negotiated its creation with city officials. It was named Liberty Plaza Park because it was situated one block south of One Liberty Plaza. They could have named it “Pigeon Park”, it’s loaded with them and they sit at the tables like little diners!

The U.S. Realty Building, built in 1907, is almost a twin of its neighbor, the Trinity Building. These two buildings are magnificent, complete with gargoyles over the entrances. Narrow Thames Street runs between them (now pedestrian only) and a skybridge connects them at the top. They really are the type of building that makes you stop in wonder. I must have 500 photos of them and really need to pull the best together for a post on them.

Feel the photo: the steam from Liberty Street rising before One Liberty Plaza. Ever wonder why? The New York City steam system is a district heating system which carries steam from central power stations under the streets of Manhattan to heat, cool, or supply power to high rise buildings and businesses.

Oculus

You sure can’t tell from the outside that Christmas is days away. It’s usually difficult to get such a clear shot of Oculus. Oculus is a photographer’s dream – great from every angle. Based on the concept of a bird about to take flight, the steel was made in Italy and has a fireproof coating. The wings just pull your eyes in to follow the curves.

Just like at The Shops at Hudson Yards, there aren’t many shoppers even so close to Christmas. I believe most folks are buying online these days. I also think most of the people in Oculus are there to take selfies! It’s understandable, the design is unique and impressive.

Oculus is home to 12 subway lines and dozens of retailers, it’s clean, bright and modern – and a great pit stop!

Woolworth Building

Just a simple wreath on the Woolworth Building…but when you look like that, what more do you need? The Woolworth Building has been called “The Mozart of skyscrapers” by Paul Goldberger, American author and architecture critic.

I’m actually in the Civic Center by this point, but I wanted to end the post with a spot I often stop at: Our Lady, at St. Andrew Roman Catholic Church. The church sits alongside the massive Municipal Building on Cardinal Hayes Place. Cardinal Patrick J. Hayes, for whom the church’s street was renamed, was born in a house next door to St. Andrew’s Church, and was baptized here in 1867.

Thank you for walking with me and letting me share the beauty of the Financial District. I hope you’ll subscribe and come back to see more real NYC photos.

All photos property of debbieinthecity.com. May not be duplicated without written permission. Any links or mention of products or services are for information purposes only and not an endorsement.

Sources:
Architecture of the New York Stock Exchange, the NYSE Building in NYC
Equitable Building (Manhattan)
Church of St. Andrew