A History Lover's Guide to New York City

Those who built skyscrapers were captains of industry and finance. To build their fortunes, they turned to Wall street. In the nineteenth century, Wall street became the financial capital of America. By the twentieth century, it had become the financial capital of the world, a position it retains today.

In 1792, twenty-four men in New York City who had informally traded shares of companies signed an agreement to regulate the buying and selling of stocks and bonds. This was “the Buttonwood Agreement” because they concluded the deal under a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall street. Wall street has been New York City’s financial center ever since.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was, however, Philadelphia that was home to the largest American banks and to the second Bank of the United states, a federal institution. The business of Wall street was on a smaller scale. Its focal point was the tontine Coffee House at the corner of Wall and Water streets. Many considered trading in stocks to be shady. This changed after the War of 1812, when the fast-paced construction of canals and railroads required large infusions of capital. Financing these enormous projects provided real impetus to the stock market. New York brokers were determined to take advantage of this situation to become number one in the country. Accordingly, in 1817, they reorganized more formally into the New York stock and Exchange Board. They also moved into new and larger quarters at 40 Wall street.

President Andrew Jackson (1829–37) then indirectly aided New York when he ended Philadelphia’s national financial leadership. Our seventh president despised the Bank of the United states, viewing it as a tool of the moneyed classes against the little guy. In 1836, Jackson disbanded the Bank of the United states and closed the second Bank in Philadelphia.

Technological advances also helped make Wall street the preeminent stock market in the country. After samuel Morse demonstrated the telegraph in 1844, New York stock prices could be quoted anywhere almost instantaneously. Telegraph lines quickly radiated from New York City to Philadelphia, Boston and points west. A young Western Union employee named Edward Calahan realized he could enhance the use of the telegraph to transmit stock prices. On november 15, 1867, in New York City, Calahan demonstrated a printer that conveyed stock prices in real time through a system of letters and numbers rather than the Morse code of the telegraph. The machine made a ticking sound. The strip of paper it printed became known as ticker tape. Improved variations of ticker tape machines continued to operate until computers took over the function of transmitting stock prices in the 1960s.

The ticker tape machine led to a New York City institution that has endured to this day: the ticker tape parade. The first use of ticker tape in a parade occurred in 1886. Enthusiasm spontaneously erupted during the parade celebrating the dedication of the statue of liberty. Workers in the offices on the Broadway parade route used ticker tape as confetti to throw down on the marchers. After the ticker tape machine retired, workers along the parade route were provided with regular confetti to use for these parades.

New York’s financial importance to the country in the nineteenth century also resided in the United states Custom House. Until the sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1916 imposed the federal income tax, the United states relied on customs duties on imported goods to generate revenue. Customhouses were at every port. New York was the country’s largest port in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and, accordingly, the largest source of federal revenue. The beautiful Alexander Hamilton U.s. Custom House, today the smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, is a reminder of the importance of customs duties and the New York role in funding the federal government.

Throughout the nineteenth century, there were financial highs and lows, panics and recoveries. Overspeculation in railroad stock and bank failures triggered the Panic of 1873. New York City bank reserves dropped significantly, contributing to a crisis in this country that lasted six years. In another panic, in 1893, United states treasury gold reserves sank alarmingly low. The result was the worst depression of the nineteenth century. The president of the United states, Grover Cleveland, turned to New York banker J.P. Morgan and his associates in 1895 to ask for a loan to keep the country financially afloat. To restore confidence in the treasury and the American economy, J.P. Morgan personally signed a note lending the United states government $65 million in gold. Morgan thereby guaranteed the solvency of the federal government and demonstrated the power of Wall street. Morgan’s actions helped calm United states financial markets and stave off a downward economic spiral.

Not all were happy with the success of Wall street and the role of J.P. Morgan. On september 16, 1920, a bomb exploded in a wagon outside the New York stock Exchange. The bomb killed thirty-three people and injured more than four hundred others. Many thought it the work of anarchists, though the identity of the perpetrators was never uncovered. It is still possible to see marks from the bomb in the exterior façade of the New York stock Exchange and of the Morgan Building at 23 Wall street.

The 1920s in the United states were the roaring twenties. Relief over the conclusion of World War I—the War to End All Wars—was palpable. There was also excitement about the shiny automobile that took over American roadways, the unconstrained growth of business and the roaring bull market of Wall street that brought an exhilarating sense of prosperity to many Americans. All but a few chose to ignore the warnings of potential economic disaster. New York financier Paul Warburg had expressed concern: too many were buying stocks on margin and credit. Investors were heavily borrowing money to speculate in the stock market, assuming the market would continue to climb. Often these buyers were new to the stock market, not understanding what they were doing or the huge risks they were taking.

Then, the very institution that formed the basis of New York’s economic power failed not only the city but also the country. On Monday, october 29, 1929, the stock market crashed. The crash came suddenly. For most, it was unexpected. They were unprepared. Vast fortunes were lost. The market went from giddy highs to great depths in less than twenty-four hours. Fortunes of millions of dollars became thousands. But the market would go lower yet in the days and weeks that followed. Within a few months, the stock market had lost $40 billion in value. The financial market that had served the country so well now brought ruin to many. Millionaires and members of the middle class lost heavily. There were some highly publicized instances of the former leaping out of their New York skyscrapers. Most, however, suffered the consequences and lived out their days in severely reduced circumstances.

The stock market crash—Black Monday, as it has been forever after known—came at a time when drought in the West left farms dry and barren. Banks foreclosed on farms. Banks then failed. Even those Americans who had prudently saved instead of speculating found that when they tried to withdraw funds from their bank accounts, there was nothing there. The country and the world at large entered the Great Depression, bleak economic years that lasted from 1929 to the late 1930s. In the United states, unemployment reached 25 percent as factories closed and construction stopped. Breadlines and soup kitchens proliferated.

Herbert Hoover, elected president in 1928, watched the buoyant American economy deflate, hopes evaporate and spirits sag. It was not that he responded indifferently. This was an era of more limited government and more circumspect federal intervention. Hoover’s solution was to urge the state governments to act. But the problems were too large and too widespread for individual states to be able to cope effectively. Hoover’s presidency foundered with the economy. In response, in 1932, the country elected the forty-fourth governor of the state of New York, Franklin Delano roosevelt, to be the thirty-second president of the United states. Roosevelt responded to the crises facing the country by building up the power of the federal government and using that power to regulate financial markets to avoid future crises like the 1929 stock market crash.

Notwithstanding the 1929 crash and the ensuing Depression, some retained their belief in the underlying strength of the American economy and New York City’s role in it. One of these was oilman John D. Rockefeller Jr., the richest man in the country. In 1930—the height of the Depression—rockefeller took on the development of a parcel of Midtown real estate with the understanding that a new Metropolitan opera House would be its centerpiece. The Metropolitan opera, strapped for funds, withdrew from the project. It looked as though the real estate project was doomed to failure and financial loss. Nevertheless, John D. Rockefeller Jr. pushed ahead. The oil titan turned to architect raymond Hood and others to develop a city within a city that became known as rockefeller Center.

Rockefeller Center is testimony to the American faith in a better future. A complex of twenty-one buildings, rockefeller Center occupies the city blocks between West 48^th and West 51^st streets from 5^th to 6^th Avenues. The focal point is the seventy-story, 850-foot-tall Comcast Building, 30 rockefeller Center, that was formerly the General Electric Building and originally the rCA Building completed in 1933.

The Depression would last until 1940. Federal efforts in the 1930s to turn around the country economically and to spur growth provided some relief. However, it was World War II that fired up the engine of American industry, leading to recovery, greater employment and an improved standard of living.

New York City contributed to the World War II effort. In addition to the many who served in the United states military, some of whom made the ultimate sacrifice, patriotism was strong in the city. Times square went dark, and lights dimmed in the city’s many skyscrapers. Workers at the Brooklyn navy Yard, one of the country’s most important, toiled overtime to build the United states navy. The Brooklyn navy Yard built both the Uss Arizona, attacked and sunk by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the Uss Missouri, on which the Japanese totally and unconditionally surrendered to the United states and its allies on september 2, 1945.

At the end of World War II, times square was the scene of major jubilation. Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt took the iconic photo of an American sailor kissing a nurse in times square on August 14, 1945, the day World War II unofficially ended. Crowds poured into times square to celebrate as the electronic billboards blasted the happy news.

The last sixty-five years have been mostly good ones for New York City. The exception was a period during the 1970s when the city’s finances failed. Government overspending and the departure of industry and jobs to cheaper areas hurt New York as a place to live and work. High unemployment and escalating crime, rampant drug use and inadequate public services left garbage piling up on street corners and graffiti on buildings and subway cars. New York City was a difficult place to live. Population numbers declined—not until the 2000 census did the population exceed what it had been in 1950. A citywide power blackout in 1977 symbolized the city’s fate. The future looked dark.

At its depths, New York City appealed to the federal government for financial aid to avoid bankruptcy. The administration of President Gerald Ford denied the aid. The New York Daily News paraphrased the president’s position in its famous october 30, 1975 headline: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” Despite the fact that the Ford administration reversed itself within a few months and offered federal loan guarantees to New York City, Ford narrowly lost the state of New York to Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election. Jimmy Carter went on to the White House to become our thirty-ninth president. Gerald Ford blamed this headline for costing him the election.

New York City, with the help of New York state, labor unions and Wall street, did avoid bankruptcy. It began a recovery that accelerated in the 1980s and ’90s and continues today. Neighborhood restoration efforts have reclaimed areas that had been crime-ridden and failing. In Manhattan, the Meatpacking District, Chelsea, soho, tribeca and the Bowery became areas for art and community living rather than centers of distress. Activists ensured the preservation of many historic buildings that otherwise would have suffered demolition. Contemporary New York is an attractive and exciting place to live and to visit. It is the most visited tourist destination in the United states.

At one World trade Center, the Freedom tower rises up as an exhilarating expression of rebirth and confidence in the future. Gleaming, it is the defiant face of American determination and refusal to bend to terrorism. Freedom tower is 1,776 feet tall in honor of the year of American Independence. It will continue to serve as a reminder to us all of the importance of preserving our liberty and human dignity and demonstrating strength, resilience and compassion in the face of adversity. Riding the elevator to the observation deck, visitors get a look back at the New York of 1609, witnessing the city’s progression to the present day, as images flash up the elevator walls while they shoot higher into the sky. With history instructed and reaffirmed, we know where we have been and who we are.

Twenty-first-century New York City owns many superlatives: the most populous city in the United states, the tallest skyscraper and the largest museum in the Western Hemisphere and the largest subway system and train station in the world. With eight hundred spoken languages, New York is the most linguistically diverse city on the globe. The tolerance of our Dutch forbearers, the determination of our immigrant ancestors, the contributions of the many and the excellence of the few combine, blend and stand out in New York City to make it, the United states and the world a better place.

Whether together we celebrate the new Year in times square or express our collective sorrow over the lives lost on september 11, 2001, we share an understanding of our history and a vision of our future with New Yorkers.

YOUR GUIDE TO HISTORY

Images

Freedom tower. Courtesy of James Maher.

1 Bowling Green across from the Battery • Lower Manhattan
212-514-3700 • www.nmai.si.edu • Free

The Alexander Hamilton U.s. Custom House building is on the site where the Dutch Fort Amsterdam once stood. It is one of the most beautiful Beaux-Arts buildings in New York City. It dates to 1907 and is the work of famed architect Cass Gilbert. sculptor Daniel Chester French designed the massive exterior statues representing the continents of America, Africa, Asia and Europe, signifying the importance of global trade. The building is named for Alexander Hamilton, a New Yorker. He was the first secretary of the treasury of the United states, serving under President George Washington. Hamilton is credited with creating the national banking system. When it operated as a customhouse, it was the greatest source of revenue for the United states government, especially before the 1916 institution of the federal income tax.

It is a national Historic landmark. The Alexander Hamilton U.s. Custom House houses the smithsonian Institution’s national Museum of the American Indian New York branch and the New York branch of the national Archives described in Chapter 2.

On Bowling Green at Broadway and Morris Streets • Lower Manhattan
www.chargingbull.com

This magnificent bronze statue by sculptor Arturo DiModica has attracted tourists in its current location since 1989. DiModica originally placed his statue without permit or permission in front of the New York stock Exchange after the 1987 stock market crash. He felt the city needed the encouragement of the bull, the symbol of stock market optimism. The city felt otherwise, and the police moved to impound the statue. Public outcry and demands for the statue to be restored to a public site led to its relocation to Bowling Green near Wall street.

When prices on the stock market are expected to rise, leading to profits and prosperity, we say it is a “bull market.” When prices decline and investors lose money, we say it is a “bear market.” the apparent underlying reason for the names relates to the way the two animals fight their enemies. A bull thrusts his horns up while a bear slashes downward with his paws. The ubiquitous cartoonist and social commentator thomas nast depicted millionaire banker

J.P. Morgan as a bull in a 1901 cartoon, thereby cementing this terminology. This is a popular attraction. Expect lines to pose for a “selfie” with the bull, including his impressive back end.

silver stars in the sidewalk along both sides of lower Broadway commemorate the more than two hundred ticker tape parades that have occurred over the past 125 years. Each star notes who was honored and on what day. The parade traditionally makes its way up Broadway from the Battery to City Hall, where the mayor extends his welcome. street signs on this part of Broadway designate it as “the Canyon of Heroes.”

The first ticker tape parade was spontaneous. During the dedication of the statue of liberty on october 28, 1886, the excitement of workers leaning from their windows in the tall financial district buildings led them to shower the parade below with ticker tape. Paper from the ticker tape machine, invented in 1867 to record telegraphed stock quotes, made great streamers.

The parades became more regularized after World War I, when returning United states military veterans received a hero’s welcome. The most famous ticker tape parade was that honoring Charles lindbergh on June 13, 1927, to celebrate the first nonstop transatlantic solo flight. Widely published photographs of “lucky lindy” proceeding up Broadway made the New York City ticker tape parade a beloved and coveted event. During the twentieth century, the honor was bestowed on generals, astronauts and foreign dignitaries, including some who were later condemned for despotic practices.

Increasingly, in the twentieth century, the ticker tape parade has honored the many New York City champion sports teams, including the New York Giants football team, the New York Yankees and New York Mets baseball teams and the New York rangers hockey team. As modernity phased out the ticker tape machine, replacing it with electronic and digital devices, the city provided confetti to the Broadway officeworkers to throw down on the parade honorees.

The iconic façade of the New York stock Exchange, recognizable around the world, is not on Wall street but at 18 Broad street. The New York stock Exchange moved into 18 Broad street in 1903. The architect of this symbol of financial power in the Classical revival style was George B. Post.

The New York stock Exchange, also known as “the Big Board,” is the leading global exchange for buying and selling shares of stock in publicly traded companies. Over fifteen million shares on average are traded daily, and the combined value of the twelve thousand listed securities is over $28 trillion. The Intercontinental Exchange or ICE, an American holding company, owns the nYsE. The nYsE closed for four trading sessions after 9/11. While it is no longer possible to tour the New York stock Exchange, there are often scenes of its activities on television. The opening bell is rung at 9:30 a.m. To signal the start of the day’s business, and the closing bell to signal its end is rung at 4:00 p.m. To stand on the podium overlooking the trading floor and ring the opening bell is an honor. This honor goes to large companies and to new companies joining the stock exchange. After 9/11, first responders rang the opening bell. While once the trading floor was a scene of frenetic activity with buyers and sellers of stock waving paper about and screaming stock prices, computerized trading has led to fewer people and more machines. It is a national Historic landmark.

48 Wall Street • Lower Manhattan
212-908-4110 • www.moaf.org • Admission Fee

Financial education is the mission of this museum. It accomplishes this objective through its exhibits on how the Federal reserve system works, speakers on special topics and tours and events such as the annual celebration of Alexander Hamilton’s birthday. Hamilton, a New Yorker, was the first American secretary of the treasury in the cabinet of President George Washington. There is a Hamilton room at the Museum of Finance in honor of him.

33 Liberty Street • Lower Manhattan
212-720-6130 • www.newyorkfed.org • Free

Visitors enter at 44 Maiden lane between nassau and William streets. It is worth the effort to go online early in the morning thirty days in advance of a requested Federal reserve Bank Museum and Gold tour date to obtain a ticket. While the museum itself is minimal (though there are plans to upgrade it), the overall tour and visit to the bank’s vault to see gold bars is fascinating. It offers an entertaining education on the American financial system for adults and mature children.

This is the only Federal reserve Bank in the United states that holds gold. There is more gold here than in any other one place in the world. Most of the gold belongs to other governments. There is very little American gold here. The New York Fed holds over $380 billion worth of gold bars from more than forty different governments. Each gold bar is worth about $500,000 to $700,000, depending on the market value of gold. Each gold bar weighs twenty-eight pounds. Think of the Fed as a bank for banks. legislation in 1913 created the Federal reserve in response to multiple bank panics and bank runs in prior years. The president appoints and Congress approves the seven members of the Board of Governors plus the chair, each for fourteen-year terms. There are also four presidents of American banks who serve on the Fed on a rotating basis. The Fed sets the prime interest rate in the United states on the basis of its assessment of the overall state of the American economy. This has a major impact on mortgage rates, savings rates and the stock market.

If you look at a one-dollar note, it will say “Federal reserve note” across the top. To the left of George Washington is a circle with a letter. If it is the letter “B,” that bill came from the New York Federal reserve Bank (though printed at its facility in new Jersey). “B” equates to the second letter or “two” for the second District Federal reserve Bank, which is New York. A one-dollar bill has a life expectancy of about twenty-two months. If ripped or damaged, it is taken out of circulation, shredded at the New York Fed and a new bill is authorized by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C.

Visitors descend into the gold vault that was built prior to the Federal reserve Bank building itself. The vault was cut one hundred feet deep into the New York bedrock. A 90-ton cylinder within a 140-ton frame rotates to close the vault door. Visitors will see but are not allowed to touch a sample of gold bars that are safely in a metal compartment. The Federal reserve Bank of New York, designed by the architectural firm of York and sawyer, resembles, appropriately and deliberately, a fort with massive blocks of stone and openings near the top that look like gun turrets.

There is a range of tickets for one World observatory in Freedom tower at one World trade Center. Varying prices reflect the degree of convenience for the visit, including take your chance, timed entry or the ability to go to the head of the line at any time on a certain day.

Freedom tower acknowledges the past and represents the future. Designed by David M. Childs of the architectural firm skidmore, owings & Merrill, it stands 1,776 feet high, symbolic of the 1776 founding of the United states of America and American freedom. The building is a dominant and luminescent presence on the New York City skyline. Rounding a corner in lower Manhattan often brings the Freedom tower into view in an exhilarating and uplifting experience. With 104 stories overall, Freedom tower has public observation decks called one World observatory on the 100^th, 101^st and 102^nd floors. The decks offer 360-degree views of Manhattan with some of the best elevated views available of the statue of liberty. On a clear day, visitors can see out to a range of fifty miles. Passenger elevators take visitors to the observatory in less than sixty seconds and provide a quick summary of New York City history since the sixteenth century.

With the addition of several more planned skyscrapers for the World trade Center site, the complex promises to restore the location to its preeminence as the focal point for global trade.

225 Madison Avenue at 36^th Street • Manhattan/Midtown
212-685-0008 • www.themorgan.org • Admission Fee

While the home of J. Pierpont Morgan no longer exists, the extraordinary library designed by Charles McKim of McKim, Mead & White, completed in 1906, stands as testimony to the wealth and power of its owner. The tennessee marble exterior and the lush interior of four breathtaking rooms are in the style of the Italian renaissance. It is no accident that the red silk wall covering in Morgan’s study is imprinted with the insignia of the Chigi, the great fifteenth-century sienese banking family. It was in this very study that Morgan and other New York financiers helped solve the 1907 economic crisis in the United states.

Morgan admired more than financial acumen. He collected the art and manuscripts of the Italian renaissance now on display here. In the beautiful rotunda, there are murals by American artist Henry siddons Mowbray of the ancient world, the Middle Ages and the renaissance. These epochs are represented in works in the collection of the Morgan library. These rooms give visitors the feel for the silence in New York City that only the very wealthy could afford. The museum is a more recent and modern addition to the Morgan rooms and permits a broader exhibition space. As noted in Chapter 11, at Christmastime, the Morgan library and Museum puts on display the original manuscript of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. The museum is a national Historic landmark.

The seven-story Marketsite tower provides a twenty-four-hours-a-day electronic display that offers up-to-date financial information to passersby. It is a popular times square feature. Inside the tower are broadcast studios for many financial news programs, including CnBC, Fox Business network, reuters and Cnn Money.

5^th Avenue to 6^th Avenue, West 48^th to West 51^st Streets • Manhattan/Midtown
212-698-2000 • www.topoftherocknyc.com • Admission Fee

Timed entry tickets for the top of the rock observation Deck and for seventy-five-minute guided tours of rockefeller Center are available online and at the box office on 50^th street between 5^th and 6^th Avenues. since 2005, two million visitors annually have enjoyed access to the top of the rock at 30 rockefeller Plaza. The elevator takes visitors to the sixty-seventh floor, with escalators to the sixty-ninth to seventieth floors. The outside spaces have high glass walls, reassuring to those who do not like heights. The views of New York City are breathtaking.

The tour of rockefeller Center includes visits to famous sculptures, including Atlas by lee lawrie in front of 636 5^th Avenue, the dramatic limestone relief sculpture of Jehovah representing wisdom on the façade of 30 rockefeller Plaza and the Paul Manship statue of Prometheus that backstops the skating rink on rockefeller Plaza. Also included are works of art by Carl Milles, Jose Maria sert, Attillio Piccirilli, Diego rivera, Isamu noguchi and many, many others.

Between 1 rockefeller Plaza and 45 rockefeller Plaza and accessible from 5^th Avenue is open space that is appealing and functional. It includes the lovely Channel Gardens, so named because, like the English Channel, they separate the French from the British. In this case, the gardens separate la Maison Française from the British Empire Building. The Channel Gardens lead toward a sunken area that is the skating rink in the winter and an outdoor café in summer, with the magnificent large statue of Prometheus by Paul Manship looking down over it all. The rockefeller Center is a national Historic landmark.