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194-908: Federal Hall is a memorial and historic site at 26 Wall Street in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City . The current Greek Revival –style building, completed in 1842 as the Custom House , is owned by the United States federal government and operated by the National Park Service as a national memorial called the Federal Hall National Memorial . The memorial is named for an earlier Federal style building on this same site, completed in 1703 as City Hall , which

388-528: A "cornerstone" of the NYSE, with a benefit of having all of a deal's players close at hand, including investment bankers , lawyers , and accountants . After Wall Street firms started to expand westward in the 1980s into New Jersey , the direct economic impacts of Wall Street activities have gone beyond New York City. The employment in the financial services industry, mostly in the "back office" roles, has become an important part of New Jersey's economy. In 2009,

582-498: A "phoenix-like resurrection" of the area, with residential, commercial, retail and hotels booming in the "third largest business district in the country". At the same time, the investment community was worried about proposed legal reforms, including the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act which dealt with matters such as credit card rates and lending requirements. The NYSE closed two of its trading floors in

776-522: A "tug-of-war" between business interests on Wall Street and authorities in Washington, D.C. , the capital of the United States by then. Generally during the 19th century Wall Street developed its own "unique personality and institutions" with little outside interference. In the 1840s and 1850s, most residents moved further uptown to Midtown Manhattan because of the increased business use at

970-642: A $ 16 million renovation, mostly to its foundation. Federal Hall National Memorial reopened in late 2006. The renovated memorial included a visitor center, showcasing other historical sites operated by the NPS in the New York City area. In 2007, the building was designated as a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District , a NRHP district. The same year, the metal detectors were removed and replaced with magnetometers because

1164-529: A $ 4 stock transfer tax , stock clerks protested. At other times, city and state officials have taken steps through tax incentives to encourage financial firms to continue to do business in the city. A post office was built at 60 Wall Street in 1905. During the World War I years, occasionally there were fund-raising efforts for projects such as the National Guard . On September 16, 1920, close to

1358-508: A 2019 special report by the Committee to Protect Journalists , approximately 25 journalists were murdered on duty in 2019. The figure is claimed to be the lowest since 2002, a year in which at least 21 journalists were killed while they were reporting from the field. Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reported 49 killings, the lowest since 2003, when almost 36 journalists were killed. Leading press watchdogs fear persisting danger for

1552-554: A backwater in American life". During the New Deal years, as well as the 1940s, there was much less focus on Wall Street and finance. The government clamped down on the practice of buying equities based only on credit, but these policies began to ease. From 1946 to 1947, stocks could not be purchased " on margin ", meaning that an investor had to pay 100% of a stock's cost without taking on any loans. However, this margin requirement

1746-559: A balcony. On balcony level, four high Doric columns were installed, supporting a pediment that depicted an American eagle with thirteen arrows (one for each of the original Thirteen Colonies ). L'Enfant also created a recessed gallery behind the columns, and he placed decorative swags above the second-story windows. The ground-story room for the United States House of Representatives measured 60 by 60 feet (18 by 18 m) across and about two stories high. A smaller room for

1940-545: A branch of the United States Mint that performed all Mint functions except creating the coinage. At its peak, the Subtreasury building held seventy percent of the federal government's money. In 1883, John Quincy Adams Ward 's bronze statue of George Washington was put up on the Subtreasury's ceremonial front steps. The statue "mark[ed] the exact height Washington stood when taking the oath of office on

2134-601: A cost of $ 928,312 (equivalent to $ 30 million in 2023). Importers would perform their business at a counter in the building's central rotunda. The building came to be associated with political patronage . "The Seven Stages of the Office Seeker", an 1852 print by Edward Williams Clay , satirized how Democratic Party patronage under New York governor Martin Van Buren was centered around the Custom House. By 1861,

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2328-476: A crash. They made a fortune but turned into the crisis's pantomime villains. Most, though, got burned – the banks are still gradually running down portfolios of non-core loans worth $ 800bn. The first months of 2008 was a particularly troublesome period which caused Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to "work holidays and weekends" and which did an "extraordinary series of moves". It bolstered U.S. banks and allowed Wall Street firms to borrow "directly from

2522-605: A crime. The king was above public criticism and statements critical of the government were forbidden, according to the English court of the Star Chamber . The truth was not a defense to seditious libel because the goal was to prevent and punish all condemnation of the government. Locke contributed to the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695 , whereupon the press needed no license. Still, some libels were tried throughout

2716-519: A day which caused a "traffic jam" of paper with "batteries of clerks" working overtime to "clear transactions and update customer accounts". In 1973, the financial community posted a collective loss of $ 245 million, which spurred temporary help from the government. Reforms were instituted; the Securities & Exchange Commission eliminated fixed commissions, which forced "brokers to compete freely with one another for investors' business". In 1975,

2910-488: A downturn with a sizable drop in year-end bonuses of $ 6.5 billion, according to one estimate from a state comptroller's office. To guard against a vehicular bombing in the area, authorities built concrete barriers, and found ways over time to make them more aesthetically appealing by spending $ 5000 to $ 8000 apiece on bollards . Parts of Wall Street, as well as several other streets in the neighborhood, were blocked off by specially designed bollards: ... Rogers Marvel designed

3104-431: A financial wall in the crisis. Foolishly and recklessly, the banks didn't look at these loans adequately, relying on flawed credit-rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's and Moody's, which blithely certified toxic mortgage-backed securities as solid ... A few of those on Wall Street, including maverick hedge fund manager John Paulson and the top brass at Goldman Sachs, spotted what was going on and ruthlessly gambled on

3298-617: A key magnet for the Wall Street remains the New York Stock Exchange Building . Some "old guard" firms such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch (bought by Bank of America in 2009), have remained "fiercely loyal to the Financial District" location, and new ones such as Deutsche Bank have chosen office space in the district. So-called "face-to-face" trading between buyers and sellers remains

3492-450: A key mechanism of a functioning, healthy democracy . In the absence of censorship , journalism exists as a watchdog of private and government action, providing information to maintain an informed citizenry of voters. In this perspective, "government efforts to influence published or broadcasted news content, either via media control or by inducing self-censorship , represent a threat to the access of important and necessary information to

3686-591: A long tradition of freedom of speech, including freedom of the press, which yet exists in the XVIII century and in the XIX century. After World War II, Hugh Baillie , the president of the United Press wire service based in the U.S., promoted freedom of news dissemination. In 1944, he called for an open system of news sources and transmission, and a minimum of government regulation of the news. His proposals were aired at

3880-479: A move towards transforming itself into an electronic exchange. Beginning in September 2011, demonstrators disenchanted with the financial system protested in parks and plazas around Wall Street. On October 29, 2012, Wall Street was disrupted when New York and New Jersey were inundated by Hurricane Sandy . Its 14-foot-high (4.3 m) storm surge, a local record, caused massive street flooding nearby. The NYSE

4074-576: A nervous meltdown when called journalist Paul Pârvu asked him if he felt guilt over Romanian deaths during the revolution. During the exchange, Iliescu referred to Pârvu as an "animal". Modern, major media outlets were founded during the mid-1990s, such as Antena 1 in 1994 and ProTV in 1995. In 1999, the editor of a Ora , a local newspaper, Tiberiu Patru, was arrested before being able to publish an investigation of corruption in Dolj County under. In response, Ora moved its newsroom in front of

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4268-566: A new kind of bollard, a faceted piece of sculpture whose broad, slanting surfaces offer people a place to sit in contrast to the typical bollard, which is supremely unsittable. The bollard, which is called the Nogo, looks a bit like one of Frank Gehry's unorthodox culture palaces, but it is hardly insensitive to its surroundings. Its bronze surfaces actually echo the grand doorways of Wall Street's temples of commerce. Pedestrians easily slip through groups of them as they make their way onto Wall Street from

4462-466: A permanent repair project, the building was to be covered in scaffolding for five to ten years. Federal Hall National Memorial was designed by architects Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis of Town and Davis, with a domed rotunda designed by the sculptor John Frazee . The building is constructed of Tuckahoe marble . Two prominent American ideals are reflected in the current building's Greek Revival architecture . Town and Davis's Doric columns on

4656-538: A possible sale of the building. Ultimately, the government decided to retain ownership of the Subtreasury, using it as storage space for the Assay Office and as office space for other agencies. The government also considered moving the Bureau of Internal Revenue to the Subtreasury. In October 1924, federal officials announced they would move Prohibition enforcement agents' offices to the Subtreasury building, using

4850-485: A renewed push for capitalism and business , with national efforts to de-regulate industries such as telecommunications and aviation . The economy resumed upward growth after a period in the early 1980s of languishing. A report in The New York Times described that the flushness of money and growth during these years had spawned a drug culture of sorts, with a rampant acceptance of cocaine use although

5044-481: A replica of Federal Hall as it appeared in 1789. At the time, the three post-office substations in Lower Manhattan could not adequately accommodate high demand from the surrounding office buildings. The department said much of the Subtreasury's space was unused because historical and patriotic societies had objected to most plans for the building. The Subtreasury continued to be used as a passport office through

5238-511: A rust-water-stained rotunda are among the deteriorating conditions that greet nearly 300,000 visitors who come there to learn about American history." Federal Hall National Memorial also had damaged floors and arches; the facade had begun to chip; and the columns had cracked and were showing signs of mold and discoloration. The cooling system was replaced in 2020. The NPS temporarily closed the memorial in July 2021 after finding cracked stone. As part of

5432-610: A second warning from the Russian censorship apparatus Roskomnadzor . On 17 June 2024, a Moscow court issued arrest warrants for IStories editor-in-chief and award-winning investigative reporter Roman Anin and Ekaterina Fomina, a journalist at TV Rain and a former IStories correspondent, on charges of disseminating "false information" about the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. Russia's Interior Ministry added two Russian journalists in exile to its wanted list. Fomina said

5626-417: A third of the world's people live in countries where there is no press freedom. Overwhelmingly, these people live in countries where there is no system of democracy or where there are serious deficiencies in the democratic process. Freedom of the press is an extremely problematic problem/concept for most non-democratic systems of government since, in the modern age, strict control of access to information

5820-533: A vast, neural spaghetti of wires, Web sites and trading platforms — the N.Y.S.E. is clearly no longer the epicenter. Nor is New York. The largest mutual-fund complexes are in Valley Forge, Pa. , Los Angeles and Boston , while trading and money management are spreading globally. Since the end of the cold war, vast pools of capital have been forming overseas, in the Swiss bank accounts of Russian oligarchs, in

6014-478: A wooden structure with a roof and open sides, although walls may have been added over the years; it could hold approximately 50 people. New York's municipal authorities directly benefited from the sale of slaves by implementing taxes on every person who was bought and sold there. In these early days, local merchants and traders would gather at disparate spots to buy and sell shares and bonds, and over time divided themselves into two classes—auctioneers and dealers. In

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6208-646: Is closed on weekends. The memorial is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 via a ramp at its rear, on Pine Street. The M55 bus stops nearby on Broadway , while the M15 and M15 SBS stop nearby on Water Street . In addition, the Broad Street station of the New York City Subway , serving the J and ​ Z trains, is directly under Federal Hall. In 2015,

6402-457: Is considered a landmark in the fight for a free press. Between September 4, 1770 and October 7, 1771 the kingdom of Denmark–Norway had the most unrestricted freedom of press of any country in Europe. This occurred during the regime of Johann Friedrich Struensee , whose second act was to abolish the old censorship laws. However, due to the great amount of mostly anonymous pamphlets published that

6596-412: Is critical to the existence of most non-democratic governments and their associated control systems and security apparatus. To this end, most non-democratic societies employ state-run news organizations to promote the propaganda critical to maintaining an existing political power base and suppress (often very brutally, through the use of police, military, or intelligence agencies) any significant attempts by

6790-434: Is known to subjectively measure the level of freedom and editorial independence that is enjoyed by the press in every nation and significant disputed territories around the world. Levels of freedom are scored on a scale from 1 (most free) to 100 (least free). Depending on the basics, the nations are then classified in three types: 1. "Free" 2. "Partly Free" 3. "Not Free". A free and independent press has been theorized to be

6984-449: Is usually accompanied by legislation ensuring various degrees of freedom of scientific research (known as scientific freedom ), publishing, and the press. The depth to which these laws are entrenched in a country's legal system can go as far down as its constitution . The concept of freedom of speech is often covered by the same laws as freedom of the press, thereby giving equal treatment to spoken and published expression. Freedom of

7178-489: The Articles of Confederation , from 1785 to 1789, and the building was expanded and updated. With the establishment of the United States federal government in 1789, it hosted the 1st Congress and was where George Washington was sworn in as the nation's first president . It was demolished in 1812 to make way for another government building. The current structure, designed by Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis ,

7372-715: The Boston Consulting Group suggesting that 65,000 jobs had been permanently lost because of the downturn. But there were signs that Manhattan property prices were rebounding with price rises of 9% annually in 2010, and bonuses were being paid once more, with average bonuses over $ 124,000 in 2010. A requirement of the New York Stock Exchange was that brokerage firms had to have offices "clustered around Wall Street" so clerks could deliver physical paper copies of stock certificates each week. There were some indications that midtown had been becoming

7566-481: The Constitution of the United States , and an exhibit about the original building would be installed as well. Federal Hall hosted a reenactment of Washington's inauguration on April 30, 1989, the event's 200th anniversary. The reenactment, attended by U.S. president George Bush , was intended to raise $ 700,000 for the museum, which opened to the public after this event. In addition to Constitution-related exhibits,

7760-752: The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (since 2000) as well as the European Convention on Human Rights (since 1950). Within the EU enlargement process, guaranteeing media freedom is named a "key indicator of a country's readiness to become part of the EU". According to the New York Times , "Britain has a long tradition of a free, inquisitive press", but "[u]nlike the United States, Britain has no constitutional guarantee of press freedom." Freedom of

7954-586: The Harlem Ship Canal had not been dug), he ordered a ditch and wooden palisade to be constructed on the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement. The wall was built of dirt and 15-foot (4.6 m) wooden planks, measuring 2,340 feet (710 m) long and 9 feet (2.7 m) tall and was built using the labor of both Black slaves and white colonists. In fact Stuyvesant had ordered that "the citizens, without exception, shall work on

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8148-609: The Manhattan Institute was that the securities industry accounts for 4.7 percent of the jobs in New York City but 20.7 percent of its wages, and he estimated there were 175,000 securities-industries jobs in New York (both Wall Street area and midtown) paying an average of $ 350,000 annually. Between 1995 and 2005, the sector grew at an annual rate of about 6.6% annually, a respectable rate, but that other financial centers were growing faster. Another estimate, made in 2008,

8342-477: The National Archives and Records Administration . Among the items displayed are a piece of the balcony upon which Washington stood in his first inauguration. Various temporary exhibitions have also been shown at Federal Hall. For instance, in 2023 the building hosted a site-specific theatre performance, The Democracy Project . Federal Hall is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays and

8536-676: The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on October 15, 1966, the day the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 was signed. The building's location on Wall Street, and near the New York Stock Exchange Building, made it a "natural rallying place" as The New York Times described it. As a result, its front steps were used for demonstrations, political rallies, President's Day celebrations, and union drives. After

8730-870: The New York City Council passed a resolution asking Congress to establish a committee to provide suggestions for restoring Federal Hall, the Castle Clinton National Monument , and the Statue of Liberty National Monument . Federal Hall was re-designated as a national memorial on August 11, 1955. The same year, the federal government created the New York City National Shrines Advisory Board. The board first convened in February 1956. The government tentatively allocated $ 1.621 million for

8924-646: The New York Mercantile Exchange and other commodity futures exchanges, along with the NYSE American . Many brokerage firms owned offices nearby to support the business they did on the exchanges. The economic impacts of Wall Street activities extend worldwide. In the original records of New Amsterdam , the Dutch always called the street Het Cingel ("the Belt"), which was also the name of

9118-646: The U.S. Custom House for the Port of New York . The Custom House previously had been located in Government House , a converted residence on Bowling Green . The old building was described as "ordinary and inconvenient", and it had become overcrowded, prompting the federal government to lease additional space in 1831. Samuel Swartwout , the Customs Collector for the Port of New York, advocated in 1832 for "spacious, safe, secure" accommodations. Land for

9312-525: The U.S. state of New Jersey , and only two salespeople in New York City; the remaining 33 employees work in a center in Kansas. Wall Street in a conceptual sense represents financial and economic power. To Americans, it can sometimes represent elitism and power politics, and its role has been a source of controversy throughout the nation's history, particularly beginning around the Gilded Age period in

9506-549: The United States Bill of Rights was proposed in Federal Hall, establishing the freedoms claimed by the 1765 Stamp Act Congress. The Judiciary Act of 1789 was also enacted in the building, setting up the United States federal court system . In 1790, the United States capital moved to Philadelphia . What had been Federal Hall was turned into quarters for the state assembly and courts. The Federal Hall building

9700-645: The United States Senate was on the second floor. L'Enfant's design influenced the development of what later became the Federal style . The city moved all of its municipal offices out of the building in late 1788, but the New York Society Library 's 3,500-volume library remained in the building for the time being. Work progressed quickly between September 1788 and March 1789. The building was renamed Federal Hall in 1789 when New York

9894-470: The Wall Street bombing of 1920, a bomb was detonated across from the Subtreasury at 23 Wall Street , in what became known as The Corner. Thirty-eight people were killed and 400 injured, though the Subtreasury was undamaged. The Federal Reserve Bank replaced the Subtreasury system in 1920, and the Subtreasury office closed on December 7 of that year. The Assay Office leased the Subtreasury building to

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10088-511: The Whigs or the Tories , and that they were "essentially and indispensably necessary" to the parties' operations. John Stuart Mill in 1869 in his book On Liberty approached the problem of authority versus liberty from the viewpoint of a 19th-century utilitarian : The individual has the right of expressing himself so long as he does not harm other individuals. The good society is one in which

10282-493: The subprime mortgage crisis from 2007 to 2010, Wall Street financing was blamed as one of the causes, although most commentators blame an interplay of factors. The U.S. government with the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailed out the banks and financial backers with billions of taxpayer dollars, but the bailout was often criticized as politically motivated, and was criticized by journalists as well as

10476-488: The "true Church of England , at this moment, lies in the Editors of its Newspapers. These preach to the people daily, weekly; admonishing kings themselves; advising peace or war, with an authority which only the first Reformers , and a long-past class of Popes , were possessed of". Similarly, Charles Dickens , in his Pickwick Papers (1837), caricatured the newspapers as but the "chosen organ and representative" of either

10670-553: The "werken" (meaning the works or city fortifications) were reinforced and expanded to protect against potential incursions from Native Americans , pirates, and the English. The English also expanded and improved the wall after their 1664 takeover (a cause of the Second Anglo-Dutch War ), as did the Dutch from 1673 to 1674 when they briefly retook the city during the Third Anglo-Dutch War , and by

10864-840: The $ 50 billion fraud perpetrated by Bernie Madoff . When large firms such as Enron , WorldCom , and Global Crossing were found guilty of fraud, Wall Street was often blamed, even though these firms had headquarters around the nation and not in Wall Street. Many complained that the resulting Sarbanes-Oxley legislation dampened the business climate with regulations that were "overly burdensome". Interest groups seeking favor with Washington lawmakers , such as car dealers, have often sought to portray their interests as allied with Main Street rather than Wall Street , although analyst Peter Overby on National Public Radio suggested that car dealers have written over $ 250 billion in consumer loans and have real ties with Wall Street . Freedom of

11058-621: The 18th century, until "the Society of the Bill of Rights" led by John Horne Tooke and John Wilkes organized a campaign to publish Parliamentary Debates. This culminated in three defeats of the Crown in the 1770 cases of Almon, Miller and Woodfall , who all had published one of the Letters of Junius , and the unsuccessful arrest of John Wheble in 1771. Thereafter the Crown was much more careful in

11252-699: The 20th century, several early skyscrapers were built on Wall Street, including 40 Wall Street , once the world's tallest building. The street is near multiple subway stations and ferry terminals . The Wall Street area is home to the New York Stock Exchange , the world's largest stock exchange by total market capitalization , as well as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York , and commercial banks and insurance companies. Several other stock and commodity exchanges have also been located in Lower Manhattan near Wall Street, including

11446-423: The Administration Building at Sailors' Snug Harbor , be named the construction superintendent. Work on the Custom House began in January 1834, but the Customs Service then requested that the plans for the new building be downsized due to increasing costs. As a result, the dome was reduced in size and the original double colonnade on the facade was changed to a single colonnade. Thomson resigned in April 1835, taking

11640-412: The American Revolution. The LPC held hearings in 1975 to determine whether the interiors of Federal Hall's rotunda, the Morris–Jumel Mansion , and the Bartow–Pell Mansion should be designated as landmarks. The LPC designated all three buildings' interiors as landmarks on May 26, 1975, and the New York City Board of Estimate ratified these designations that July. The NPS hired Phoebe Dent Weil to restore

11834-405: The Confederation still needed a permanent structure, and the New York City Council and mayor James Duane wished for the city to be the United States capital. Private citizens and the government of New York City contributed $ 65,000 toward the renovation of the old City Hall. The Patriots felt that the building should be remodeled in a distinctively American architectural style while also preserving

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12028-446: The Fed" through a vehicle called the Fed's Discount Window, a sort of lender of last report. These efforts were highly controversial at the time, but from the perspective of 2010, it appeared the Federal exertions had been the right decisions. By 2010, Wall Street firms, in Clark's view, were "getting back to their old selves as engine rooms of wealth, prosperity and excess". A report by Michael Stoler in The New York Sun described

12222-435: The Fed, which was constructing a building of its own, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building , two blocks north. The Fed started moving its monetary holdings from the Subtreasury to the new Fed building in May 1924. This prompted concern among local financiers that the federal government was planning to sell the building to a private entity. That July, nationalist group American Defense Society started advocating against

12416-428: The Financial Service cluster, there were three major sectors: more than 60 percent were in the securities industry ; 20 percent were in banking ; and 8 percent in insurance . Additionally, New Jersey has become the main technology infrastructure to support the Wall Street operations. A substantial amount of securities traded in the United States are executed in New Jersey as the data centers of electronic trading in

12610-508: The Fixed Income Clearing Corporation and Emerging Markets Clearing Corporation. Having a direct tie to Wall Street employment can be problematic for New Jersey, however. The state lost 7.9 percent of its employment base from 2007 to 2010 in the financial services sector in the fallout of the subprime mortgage crisis . Of the street's importance as a financial center, New York Times analyst Daniel Gross wrote: In today's burgeoning and increasingly integrated global financial markets —

12804-409: The Geneva Conference on Freedom of Information in 1948 but were blocked by the Soviets and the French. Since 1950, the European Convention on Human Rights includes "Article 10" related to Freedom of expression which applies to Member states of the Council of Europe . Media freedom is a fundamental right that applies to all member states of the European Union and its citizens , as defined in

12998-423: The George Washington statue on the front steps in 1978. The Whitney Museum opened a temporary branch at Federal Hall in 1982. This was actually the third location of the Whitney's first satellite branch, which had previously been housed at 55 Water Street and the First Police Precinct Station House . The satellite branch occupied four galleries on the mezzanine of Federal Hall (around the central rotunda), while

13192-473: The NPS hosted history exhibits in other parts of the building. The Whitney closed the Federal Hall branch in 1984, eventually reopening at 33 Maiden Lane in 1988. During this decade, Richard Jenrette  – the chairman of banking house Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette , which was headquartered nearby – started soliciting $ 500,000 in private donations to renovate Federal Hall, in conjunction with Federal Hall Memorial Associates. Although

13386-506: The National Theater of Craiova to protest Patru's arrest. The 2000s saw the creation of many new media outlets across television, radio, and the traditional press. In 2023, Reporters Without Borders identified safety as a concern for Romanian journalists. More than 120 journalists remained in prison in Turkey in 2019, making it the most prolific incarcerator of journalists in the world. In some countries, including Turkey, journalists were threatened or arrested for their coverage of

13580-474: The Romanian citizenry, was highly illegal and severe repercussions for existed for listening. Directly following the Romanian Revolution , post-communist corruption was largely the subject of investigative reports. At the same time, widespread violence against journalists began. During the June 1990 Mineriad , a series of protests against the National Salvation Front , counter-demonstrators assaulted reporting journalists. In 1992, President Ion Iliescu had

13774-538: The Russian military and its operations in Ukraine, forcing independent media in Russia to stop reporting on Ukraine or cease operations. At least 1,000 Russian journalists have fled Russia since February 2022. About 85% of Russians get most of their information from Russian state-controlled media. Novaya Gazeta 's editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for his "efforts to safeguard freedom of expression". In March 2022, Novaya Gazeta suspended its print activities after receiving

13968-672: The SEC threw out the NYSE 's "Rule 394" which had required that "most stock transactions take place on the Big Board's floor", in effect freeing up trading for electronic methods. In 1976, banks were allowed to buy and sell stocks, which provided more competition for stockbrokers . Reforms had the effect of lowering prices overall, making it easier for more people to participate in the stock market. Broker commissions for each stock sale lessened, but volume increased. The Reagan years were marked by

14162-592: The Shanghai vaults of Chinese manufacturing magnates and in the coffers of funds controlled by governments in Singapore, Russia, Dubai , Qatar and Saudi Arabia that may amount to some $ 2.5 trillion. An example is the alternative trading platform known as BATS , based in Kansas City , which came "out of nowhere to gain a 9 percent share in the market for trading United States stocks". The firm has computers in

14356-597: The Subtreasury building. A passport office opened on the Pine Street side of the building in March 1925. The Subtreasury was also used for events such as a 1926 party to celebrate the dedication of the Bowling Green Community House, as well as Constitution Day celebrations. The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) built its Nassau Street Line under the building in the late 1920s, and

14550-522: The Subtreasury was underpinned during the line's construction. The original foundation was only 8 feet (2.4 m) deep, so additional supports were installed underneath, descending 30 feet (9.1 m) to the bedrock. Both houses of Congress passed legislation allowing the BMT line to be built slightly underneath the building. A water main under Nassau Street ruptured in October 1931, severely damaging some of

14744-547: The U.S. equity market for all major stock exchanges are located in North and Central Jersey . A significant amount of securities clearing and settlement workforce is also in the state. This includes the majority of the workforce of Depository Trust Company, the primary U.S. securities depository ; and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation , the parent company of National Securities Clearing Corporation,

14938-522: The United States as a whole, the American financial services industry , New York–based financial interests, or the Financial District. Anchored by Wall Street, New York has been described as the world's principal fintech and financial center . The street was originally known in Dutch as Het Cingel ("the Belt") when it was part of New Amsterdam during the 17th century. An actual city wall existed on

15132-585: The Wall Street employment wages were paid in the amount of almost $ 18.5 billion in the state. The industry contributed $ 39.4 billion or 8.4 percent to the New Jersey's gross domestic product in the same year. The most significant area with Wall Street employment is in Jersey City . In 2008, the "Wall Street West" employment contributed to one third of the private sector jobs in Jersey City. Within

15326-515: The abolition of the king's prerogative to cancel licenses in the 1840s. The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo , criticized Russia for limiting the activities of VOA and Radio Free Europe in Russia with a governmental order demanding reviewing the subject by Moscow. On 4 March 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill introducing prison sentences of up to 15 years for those who publish "knowingly false information" about

15520-424: The ambit of national interest and enable citizens to request access to government-held information. The United Nations ' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers." This philosophy

15714-538: The application of libel ; for example, in the aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre , Burdett was convicted, whereas by contrast, the Junius affair was over a satire and sarcasm about the non-lethal conduct and policies of the government. In Britain's American colonies, the first editors discovered their readers enjoyed it when they criticised the local governor; the governors discovered they could shut down

15908-403: The area around historic Trinity Church. Cars, however, cannot pass. The Guardian reporter Andrew Clark described the years of 2006 to 2010 as "tumultuous", in which the heartland of America was "mired in gloom" with high unemployment around 9.6%, with average house prices falling from $ 230,000 in 2006 to $ 183,000, and foreboding increases in the national debt to $ 13.4 trillion, but that despite

16102-467: The arrest warrant would affect her professional life as she would not be able to travel to many countries that could arrest her and extradite her to Russia. Until 1989, Romania was part of the communist bloc as the Socialist Republic of Romania . The communist regime heavily restricted freedom of the press and other civil liberties. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty , though available to

16296-762: The author's work, then the author must turn to self-publishing . Beyond legal definitions, several non-governmental organizations use other criteria to judge the level of press freedom worldwide. Some create subjective lists, while others are based on quantitative data: Each year, The Committee to Protect Journalists produces a comprehensive list of all working journalists killed in relation to their employment, including profiles of each deceased journalist within an exhaustive database, and an annual census of incarcerated journalists (as of midnight, December 1). The year 2017 reported record findings of jailed journalists, reaching 262. Turkey , China , and Egypt account for more than half of all global journalists jailed. As per

16490-563: The average. Business writer John Brooks in his book Once in Golconda considered the start of the 20th century period to have been Wall Street's heyday. The address of 23 Wall Street , the headquarters of J. P. Morgan & Company , known as The Corner , was "the precise center, geographical as well as metaphorical, of financial America and even of the financial world". Wall Street has had changing relationships with government authorities. In 1913, for example, when authorities proposed

16684-587: The balcony of Federal Hall taking the oath of office. The second issue was released in 1957, the 200th anniversary of Alexander Hamilton's birth. This issue depicts Alexander Hamilton and a full view of Federal Hall. In addition, in 1988, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative 25-cent stamp in 1988, the 200th anniversary of when New York ratified the United States Constitution . The stamp depicted

16878-565: The balcony" of the eighteenth-century edifice, overlooking the crowds filling Broad Street up to Wall Street. By 1903, the building held over $ 275 million in gold, silver, and various other types of money; this amounted to nearly one-tenth of all of the United States' money at that point. A plaque memorializing the Northwest Ordinance was dedicated at the Subtreasury in 1905. By 1917, the Subtreasury building held $ 519 million worth of gold and several million dollars more in coins. In

17072-463: The basement vaults to store confiscated alcoholic beverages. These plans were canceled the next month because of opposition from patriotic and historical societies. In early 1925, the City Club of New York appealed to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon to preserve the Subtreasury building. U.S. representative Anning Smith Prall proposed a bill that December to allocate $ 5 million for an expansion of

17266-588: The building closed for restoration in 1968, the NPS said that loitering on the front steps developed into "more of a problem". Among these events were an anti-narcotics rally and a protest against the Vietnam War in 1970. The building reopened to the public in 1972 as a museum. That year, the New York City Bicentennial Corporation issued a commemorative medal honoring the original Federal Hall, as well as New York City during

17460-889: The building from the British during the American Revolutionary War in 1775. Afterward, City Hall served as the meeting place for the Continental Congress . After the American Revolution , City Hall was home to the Congress of the Confederation of the United States under the Articles of Confederation . The first meeting of the Confederation Congress took place at City Hall on April 13, 1784. The Congress of

17654-414: The building's western elevation, there was originally a wrought-iron fence about 38 inches (970 mm) tall and 190 feet (58 m) long; it rested on a parapet of Tennessee marble measuring 22 inches (560 mm) tall. The fence, which was placed about 5 feet (1.5 m) in front of the building, was removed in 1954. When the building was used by the Subtreasury, guards were stationed in three turrets on

17848-541: The building. On September 6, 2002, approximately 300 members of Congress traveled from Washington, D.C. to New York to convene in Federal Hall National Memorial as a symbolic show of support for the city; this was the first meeting of Congress in New York since 1790. Four steel pilings were installed under one of the building's corners in 2003 after investigators found a 24-inch air gap beneath that corner. The site closed on December 3, 2004, for

18042-405: The buildings on Wall Street itself saw only little physical damage. One estimate was that 45% of Wall Street's "best office space" had been lost. The NYSE was determined to re-open on September 17, almost a week after the attack. During this time Rockefeller Group Business Center opened additional offices at 48 Wall Street . Still, after September 11, the financial services industry went through

18236-472: The center of the floor is a stone slab, where George Washington once stood. The National Park Service operates Federal Hall as a national memorial. The memorial has tourist information about the New York Harbor area's federal monuments and parks, and a New York City tourism information center. The gift shop has colonial and early American items for sale. Normally its exhibit galleries are open free to

18430-453: The city's first administrative center. It measured two stories high, with wings extending west and east. The stones from Wall Street's old fortifications were used for City Hall. Also housed at City Hall was a public library (which had 1,642 volumes by the year 1730), as well as a firehouse with two fire engines imported from London. The upper stories were used as a debtors' prison . In 1735, John Peter Zenger , an American newspaper publisher,

18624-496: The city's tax revenue, and 22 percent of the city's total wages, including an average salary of US$ 360,700. The seven largest Wall Street firms in the 2000s were Bear Stearns , JPMorgan Chase , Citigroup , Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley , Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers . During the recession of 2008–10, many of these firms, including Lehman, went out of business or were bought up at firesale prices by other financial firms. In 2008, Lehman filed for bankruptcy, Bear Stearns

18818-426: The city's tax revenues and 20% of the state's, the downturn has had huge repercussions for government treasuries. New York's mayor Michael Bloomberg reportedly over a four-year period dangled over $ 100 million in tax incentives to persuade Goldman Sachs to build a 43-story headquarters in the Financial District near the destroyed World Trade Center site. In 2009, things looked somewhat gloomy, with one analysis by

19012-602: The clamor of business and trade and the owners complaining that they can't get anything done," according to a historian named Burrows. The opening of the Erie Canal in the early 19th century meant a huge boom in business for New York City, since it was the only major eastern seaport which had direct access by inland waterways to ports on the Great Lakes . Wall Street became the "money capital of America". Historian Charles R. Geisst suggested that there has constantly been

19206-462: The coming of night and the suspension of business was entirely changed last night as hundreds of men worked under the glare of searchlights to repair the damage to skyscrapers that were lighted up from top to bottom. ... The Assay Office, nearest the point of explosion, naturally suffered the most. The front was pierced in fifty places where the cast iron slugs, which were of the material used for window weights, were thrown against it. Each slug penetrated

19400-449: The companies included in Dow's original calculations were American Tobacco Company , General Electric , Laclede Gas Company , National Lead Company , Tennessee Coal & Iron , and United States Leather Company . When the average "peaks and troughs" went up consistently, he deemed it a bull market condition; if averages dropped, it was a bear market . He added up prices, and divided by

19594-628: The constructions… by immediately digging a ditch from the East River to the North River, 4 to 5 feet deep and 11 to 12 feet wide..." And that "the soldiers and other servants of the Company, together with the free Negroes, no one excepted, shall complete the work on the fort by constructing a breastwork, and the farmers are to be summoned to haul the sod." The first Anglo-Dutch War ended in 1654 without hostilities in New Amsterdam, but over time

19788-575: The corner of Wall and Broad Street , the busiest corner of the Financial District and across the offices of the Morgan Bank , a powerful bomb exploded . It killed 38 and seriously injured 143 people. The perpetrators were never identified or apprehended. The explosion did, however, help fuel the Red Scare that was underway at the time. A report from The New York Times : The tomb-like silence that settles over Wall Street and lower Broadway with

19982-477: The corner of Wall and Broad streets", and in 1998, offered substantial tax incentives to try to keep it in the Financial District. Plans to rebuild it were delayed by the September 11 attacks. The exchange still occupies the same site. The exchange is the locus for a large amount of technology and data. For example, to accommodate the three thousand people who work directly on the exchange floor requires 3,500 kilowatts of electricity, along with 8,000 phone circuits on

20176-425: The dealer slipped him a heat-sealed plastic envelope of cocaine and he passed her cash, the transaction was being watched through the sunroof of her car by Federal drug agents in a nearby building. And the customer — an undercover agent himself -was learning the ways, the wiles and the conventions of Wall Street's drug subculture. In 1987, the stock market plunged, and, in the relatively brief recession following,

20370-541: The early 1940s were sales of World War II war bonds , Constitution Day celebrations, rallies in support of the United Service Organizations , and stamp sales. Federal Hall Memorial continued to be used for events in the 1950s, including a blood donation drive and a Salvation Army donation drive. In 1952, the United States House of Representatives ' Subcommittee of the Interior voted to permit

20564-406: The economy changed from "agricultural to industrial to financial" and New York maintained its leadership position despite these changes, according to historian Thomas Kessner. New York was second only to London as the world's financial capital. In 1884, Charles Dow began tracking stocks, initially beginning with 11 stocks, mostly railroads. He looked at average prices for these eleven. Some of

20758-543: The eight countries with the most press freedom are, in order: Norway , Denmark , Sweden , Estonia , Finland , Ireland , Portugal , and Costa Rica . The ten countries with the least press freedom are, in order: North Korea , Eritrea , Iran , Turkmenistan , Myanmar , China , Vietnam , Cuba , Iraq , and Syria . Freedom of the Press is a yearly report by the US-based non-profit organization Freedom House . It

20952-675: The facade resemble those of the Parthenon and serve as a tribute to the democracy of the Greeks . Frazee's domed rotunda echoes the Pantheon and is evocative of the republican ideals of the ancient Romans . The building contains two basement levels, three full above-ground stories, and an attic. The Subtreasury had been constructed with 22 or 25 rooms. The facade of the building is made of marble blocks measuring 5 feet (1.5 m) thick. A set of 18 granite steps lead from ground level up to

21146-401: The federal government would start redeveloping the three historic sites in advance of the 1964 New York World's Fair . Federal government officials also installed a plaque in front of the building, dedicating it as a "national shrine". The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the building's exterior as a landmark on December 21, 1965. The building was also added to

21340-591: The film industry, from directors to the lowliest assistant, had to sign an oath of loyalty to the Nazi Party due to the opinion-changing power Goebbels perceived movies to have; Goebbels himself maintained some personal control over every single film made in Nazi Europe. Journalists who crossed the Propaganda Ministry were routinely imprisoned. One of the world's first freedom of the press acts

21534-430: The first official designation of Wall Street in 1686, the same year he issued a new charter for New York. Confusion over the origins of the name Wall Street appeared in modern times because in the 19th and early 20th century some historians mistakenly thought the Dutch had called it "de Waal Straat", which to Dutch ears sounds like Walloon Street. However, in 17th century New Amsterdam, de Waal Straat (Wharf or Dock Street)

21728-553: The former investment firm of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette was described as a Wall Street firm but had its headquarters on Park Avenue in Midtown . A report described the migration from Wall Street: The financial industry has been slowly migrating from its historic home in the warren of streets around Wall Street to the more spacious and glamorous office towers of Midtown Manhattan. Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bear Stearns have all moved north. Nevertheless,

21922-424: The government of the newly independent United States used as its capital building and called Federal Hall during the 1780s. The 1703 building had served as New York's City Hall and hosted the 1765 Stamp Act Congress before the American Revolution . After the United States became an independent nation, it served as the meeting place for the Congress of the Confederation , the nation's first central government under

22116-427: The greatest number of persons enjoy the greatest possible amount of happiness. Applying these general principles of liberty to freedom of expression, Mill states that if we silence an opinion, we may silence the truth. The individual freedom of expression is therefore essential to the well-being of society. Mill wrote: The December 1817 Trials of writer and satirist William Hone for publishing three political pamphlets

22310-404: The group planned to renovate the rotunda into a reception area with contemporary furnishings, by 1985, only $ 73.000 had been raised and no contemporary furnishings had been acquired. Federal officials announced in 1986 that Federal Hall would be renovated; the spaces would be cleaned and painted, and mechanical systems would be replaced. The memorial's second floor would contain two galleries about

22504-453: The headquarters of banks. These include: Another key anchor for the area is the New York Stock Exchange Building at the corner of Broad Street . It houses the New York Stock Exchange , which is by far the world's largest stock exchange per market capitalization of its listed companies, at US$ 28.5 trillion as of June 30, 2018. City authorities realize its importance, and believed that it has "outgrown its neoclassical temple at

22698-531: The idea, writing "when as debtors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper, but inoffensive books must not stir forth without a visible jailer in their title." Although at the time it did little to halt the practice of licensing, it would be viewed later a significant milestone as one of the most eloquent defenses of press freedom. Milton's central argument was that the individual is capable of using reason and distinguishing right from wrong, and good from bad. In order to be able to exercise this ration right,

22892-470: The individual must have unlimited access to the ideas of his fellow men in "a free and open encounter." Milton's writings developed the concept of the open marketplace of ideas , the idea that when people argue against each other, good arguments will prevail. One form of speech that was widely restricted in Great Britain was seditious libel , and laws were in place that made criticizing the government

23086-459: The interior are New York City designated landmarks , and the building is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District , listed on the National Register of Historic Places . In the 17th century, the area north of Wall Street was occupied by John Damen's farm. Damen sold the land in 1685 to captain John Knight, an officer of Thomas Dongan 's administration. Knight resold

23280-407: The land to Dongan, and Dongan resold it in 1689 to Abraham de Peyster and Nicholas Bayard. Both de Peyster and Bayard served as Mayors of New York . The original structure on the site was built as New York's second City Hall from 1699 to 1703, on Wall Street , in what is today the Financial District of Lower Manhattan . This structure had been designed by James Evetts to replace Stadt Huys ,

23474-458: The late 1600s the wall encircled most of the city and had two large stone bastions on the northern side. The Dutch named these bastions "Hollandia" and "Zeelandia" after the ships that carried their invasion force. The wall started at Hanover Square on Pearl Street, which was the shoreline at that time, crossed the Indian path that the Dutch called Heeren Wegh , now called Broadway , and ended at

23668-486: The late 18th century, there was a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street under which traders and speculators would gather to trade securities. The benefit was being in proximity to each other. In 1792, traders formalized their association with the Buttonwood Agreement which was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange . The idea of the agreement was to make the market more "structured" and "without

23862-456: The late 19th century. Wall Street became the symbol of a country and economic system that many Americans see as having developed through trade, capitalism, and innovation. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry , or New York–based financial interests. Wall Street has become synonymous with financial interests, often used negatively. During

24056-730: The law may suppress abuses of this freedom. However, Bibles, catechisms, liturgical and prayer books shall not be printed without the prior permission of the Bishop. After the abolition of the monarchy in 1946 and the abrogation of the Statute in 1948, the Constitution of the Republic of Italy guarantees the freedom of the press, as stated in Article 21, Paragraphs 2 and 3: The press may not be subjected to any authorisation or censorship. Seizure may be permitted only by judicial order stating

24250-580: The levying of the Stamp Act by the Parliament of Great Britain . Drawn together for the first time in organized opposition to British policy, the attendees drafted a message to King George III , the House of Lords , and the House of Commons , claiming entitlement to the same rights as the residents of Britain and protesting the colonies' " taxation without representation ". The Sons of Liberty took over

24444-428: The life of journalists. The drop in the murder of in-field journalists came across during the "global attention on the issue of impunity in journalist murders", focusing on the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 and Daphne Caruana Galizia , a Maltese blogger in October 2017. Every year, Reporters Without Borders establishes a subjective ranking of countries in terms of their freedom of

24638-436: The locus of financial services dealings even by 1911. But as technology progressed, in the middle and later decades of the 20th century, computers and telecommunications replaced paper notifications, meaning that the close proximity requirement could be bypassed in more situations. Many financial firms found that they could move to Midtown Manhattan , only four miles (6 km) away, and still operate effectively. For example,

24832-402: The lower tip of the island. The Civil War greatly expanded the northern economy, bringing greater prosperity to cities like New York which "came into its own as the nation's banking center" connecting "Old World capital and New World ambition", according to one account. J. P. Morgan created giant trusts and John D. Rockefeller 's Standard Oil moved to New York City. Between 1860 and 1920,

25026-490: The main entrance, while the northern colonnade leads to the primary hallway of the building. The outer walls of the eastern and western colonnades contain plainly designed windows. There are gilded-iron balconies behind each colonnade. Between the colonnades are short sections of flat wall, situated between flat pilasters . The pilasters measure 25 feet (7.6 m) high. Above the balconies are barrel vaulted ceilings. The rotunda had contained four Carrara-marble counters when it

25220-439: The manipulative auctions", with a commission structure. Persons signing the agreement agreed to charge each other a standard commission rate; persons not signing could still participate but would be charged a higher commission for dealing. In 1789, Wall Street was the scene of the United States' first presidential inauguration when George Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall on April 30, 1789. This

25414-504: The media or individual journalists to challenge the approved "government line" on contentious issues. In such countries, journalists operating on the fringes of what is deemed to be acceptable will very often find themselves the subject of considerable intimidation by agents of the state. This can range from simple threats to their professional careers (firing, professional blacklisting ) to death threats , kidnapping , torture , and assassination . Central, Northern, and Western Europe have

25608-483: The memorial. Due to concerns over the building's structural integrity, Federal Hall was closed for one month following the attacks. When the building reopened, metal detectors similar to those at airports were placed at the entrances. Meanwhile, the cracks in the building were exacerbated following the collapse of the World Trade Center. As a result, in early 2002, the NPS received $ 16.5 million for repairs to

25802-519: The mid-1930s. In 1939, after the government announced plans to demolish the Subtreasury building, a group called Federal Hall Memorial Associates raised money to prevent the building's demolition. On April 29, 1939, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes announced that the Subtreasury would become a historic site. The building was designated as Federal Hall Memorial National Historic Site on May 26, 1939, and an information bureau opened on

25996-413: The museum had an estimated 200,000 annual visitors. This was about one percent of the 15 million people who visited the intersection of Wall, Nassau, and Broad Streets every year. Engraved renditions of Federal Hall appear on multiple U.S. postage stamps. The first stamp showing Federal Hall was issued on April 30, 1939, the 150th anniversary of President Washington's inauguration , where he is depicted on

26190-607: The museum hosted temporary exhibits such as a display of Hudson Valley artwork, a showcase of New York City designated landmarks, and an exhibit about the abolition of slavery in the United States. By the beginning of the 21st century, Federal Hall contained numerous large cracks. During the September 11, 2001, attacks , which caused the nearby collapse of the World Trade Center 's Twin Towers, 300 people sheltered at

26384-493: The new building had been purchased incrementally in 1816, 1824, and 1832. The firm of Town and Davis , composed of Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis , won an architectural design competition for the new Custom House building and was awarded the contract for the building's design in August 1833. Town estimated that the plans would cost $ 250,000 if the Custom House building was made of granite, or $ 320,000 to $ 350,000 if it

26578-402: The newspapers. The most dramatic confrontation came in New York in 1734, where the governor brought John Peter Zenger to trial for criminal libel after the publication of satirical attacks. The defense lawyers argued that according to English common law, the truth was a valid defense against libel. The jury acquitted Zenger, who became the iconic American hero for freedom of the press. The result

26772-463: The number and quality of financial jobs in the city. One estimate was that Wall Street firms employed close to 200,000 persons in 2008. Another estimate was that in 2007, the financial services industry which had a $ 70 billion profit became 22 percent of the city's revenue. Another estimate (in 2006) was that the financial services industry makes up 9% of the city's work force and 31% of the tax base. An additional estimate from 2007 by Steve Malanga of

26966-538: The number of stocks to get his Dow Jones average . Dow's numbers were a "convenient benchmark" for analyzing the market and became an accepted way to look at the entire stock market . In 1889 the original stock report, Customers' Afternoon Letter , became The Wall Street Journal . Named in reference to the actual street, it became an influential international daily business newspaper published in New York City. After October 7, 1896, it began publishing Dow's expanded list of stocks. A century later, there were 30 stocks in

27160-462: The original Federal Hall, Wall Street, and Trinity Church's steeple. Notes Sources Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City . It runs eight city blocks between Broadway in the west and South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for the financial markets of

27354-621: The original outer barrier street, wall, and canal of Amsterdam . After the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, they renamed the settlement "New York" and in tax records from April 1665 (still in Dutch) they refer to the street as Het Cingel ofte Stadt Wall ("the Belt or the City Wall"). This use of both names for the street also appears as late as 1691 on the Miller Plan of New York. New York Governor Thomas Dongan may have issued

27548-429: The other shoreline (today's Trinity Place), where it took a turn south and ran along the shore until it ended at the old fort . There was a gate at Broadway (the "Land Gate") and another at Pearl Street, the "Water Gate." The wall and its fortifications were eventually removed in 1699—it had outlived its usefulness because the city had grown well beyond the wall. A new City Hall was built at Wall and Nassau in 1700 using

27742-505: The overall percent of actual users was most likely small. A reporter wrote: The Wall Street drug dealer looked like many other successful young female executives. Stylishly dressed and wearing designer sunglasses, she sat in her 1983 Chevrolet Camaro in a no-parking zone across the street from the Marine Midland Bank branch on lower Broadway. The customer in the passenger seat looked like a successful young businessman. But as

27936-516: The plans with him. Sculptor John Frazee was named the superintendent in Thomson's stead; he worked to piece together Town and Davis's original plans. Frazee influenced the design of the interior and decorative details, and he modified plans for the attic to a full-height third story. Frazee got into a dispute with building commissioner Walter Bowne and was dismissed in 1840, although he was rehired in 1841. The Custom House building opened in 1842 at

28130-538: The pre-colonial structure. Pierre Charles L'Enfant , a French architect who had helped the Americans during the Revolutionary War, was selected to remodel the structure. L'Enfant's expansion was characteristic of Georgian -style designs, although he used larger proportions, and added American motifs. An arched promenade was built through the street-level basement, with four heavy Tuscan columns supporting

28324-477: The press Without respect to governmental information, any government may distinguish which materials are public or protected from disclosure to the public. State materials are protected due to either one of two reasons: the classification of information as sensitive, classified, or secret, or the relevance of the information to protecting the national interest . Many governments are also subject to " sunshine laws " or freedom of information legislation that define

28518-464: The press was established in Great Britain in 1695, with Alan Rusbridger , former editor of The Guardian , stating: "When people talk about licensing journalists or newspapers the instinct should be to refer them to history. Read about how licensing of the press in Britain was abolished in 1695. Remember how the freedoms won here became a model for much of the rest of the world, and be conscious of how

28712-580: The press was formally established in Great Britain with the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695. Sweden was the first country in the world to adopt freedom of the press into its constitution with the Freedom of the Press Act of 1766. Freedom of the press is not construed as an absence of interference by outside entities, such as a government or religious organization, but rather as a right for authors to have their works published by other people. This idea

28906-568: The press was suppressed in Nazi Germany by the Reichstag Fire Decree of President Paul von Hindenburg , just as Adolf Hitler was coming to power. Hitler suppressed freedom of the press through Joseph Goebbels ' Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda . The Ministry acted as a central control point for all media, issuing orders as to what stories could be run and what stories would be suppressed. Anyone involved in

29100-469: The press. The Press Freedom Index list is based on responses to surveys sent to journalists that are members of partner organizations of the RWB, as well as related specialists such as researchers, jurists, and human rights activists. The survey asks questions about direct attacks on journalists and the media and other indirect sources of pressure against the free press, such as non-governmental groups. In 2022,

29294-502: The public and affect the quality of democracy". An independent press "serves to increase political knowledge, participation, and voter turnout ", acting as an essential driver of civic participation. Turkey , China , Egypt , Eritrea , and Saudi Arabia accounted for 70% of all journalists that were imprisoned in 2018. CPJ reported that "After China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, the worst jailers are Eritrea, Vietnam, and Iran." According to Reporters Without Borders , more than

29488-457: The public daily, except national holidays, and guided tours of the site are offered throughout the day. The memorial has several permanent exhibits. These include George Washington's Inauguration Gallery , including the Bible used to swear his oath of office ; Freedom of the Press , the imprisonment and trial of John Peter Zenger ; and New York: An American Capital , preview exhibit created by

29682-560: The public. Analyst Robert Kuttner in the Huffington Post criticized the bailout as helping large Wall Street firms such as Citigroup while neglecting to help smaller community development banks such as Chicago's ShoreBank . One writer in the Huffington Post looked at FBI statistics on robbery, fraud, and crime and concluded that Wall Street was the "most dangerous neighborhood in the United States" if one factored in

29876-868: The reason and only for offences expressly determined by the law on the press or in case of violation of the obligation to identify the persons responsible for such offences. The Constitution allows the warrantless confiscation of periodicals in cases of absolute urgency, when the Judiciary cannot timely intervene, on the condition that a judicial validation must be obtained within 24 hours. Article 21 also gives restrictions against those publications considered offensive by public morality , as stated in Paragraph 6: Publications, performances, and other exhibits offensive to public morality shall be prohibited. Measures of preventive and repressive measure against such violations shall be established by law. In 1933, freedom of

30070-495: The records that were stored in the basement. A writer for The New York Times in 1930 characterized the Subtreasury as one of "the big little buildings of Wall Street", along with 23 Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange Building , and Trinity Church . In the early 1930s, the United States Post Office Department proposed replacing the Subtreasury building with a post office, which would be

30264-560: The rehabilitation of Federal Hall. The John Peter Zenger Room, a journalism exhibit, was dedicated at Federal Hall in April 1953. The next year, the U.S. government relocated the building's original wrought-iron fence into the basement because the Tennessee marble under it had started to buckle. As the building is owned by the federal government and managed by the NPS, renovations and restoration proposals must be approved by Congress. In 1954,

30458-495: The relocation of the Custom House, 26 Wall Street was transformed into a building for the United States Subtreasury . The Subtreasury desks were arranged around the rotunda of the building. Gold and coin storage vaults were placed along a passage near the north side of the rotunda. Bars were stored to the west, or left, and gold certificates and coins were stored to the east, or right. A vault for small change

30652-482: The restoration of Federal Hall, whose interior had become dilapidated. In February 1957, the board recommended allocating $ 3 million for the restoration of the three sites. By 1960, Interior Secretary Fred A. Seaton announced plans to restore Federal Hall within the next two years. He proposed that local civic groups raise $ 2.9 million, half of the projected cost, and that the government raise matching funds . The next year, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall announced that

30846-671: The restoration of the Washington statue outside the building. In 2015, the National Trust for Historic Preservation said Federal Hall's grand staircase would be renovated after the American Express Foundation had given a $ 300,000 grant. At the time, the steps had begun to fall into disrepair and showed signs of spalling and cracking. The work was to begin in late 2016. By 2018, local newspaper AM New York Metro wrote that "cracked walls, peeling paint and

31040-585: The roof. These turrets contained grilles through which the guards could fire at invaders. There are also flat pilasters on the western facade, along Nassau Street. The main rotunda of Federal Hall is 60 feet (18 m) in diameter. The rotunda is designed as an amphiprostyle : it has balconies on four sides, but it lacks columns between each balcony. The wall of the rotunda contains four sections of colonnade, each containing four columns. The columns each measure 32 feet (9.8 m) high and 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) across. The southern colonnade leads to

31234-447: The rotunda floor, with exhibits related to finance and the 1939 New York World's Fair . The next month, the National Park Service (NPS) took over the Subtreasury building. The memorial commemorated the first building on the site, rather than the extant Subtreasury building. Due to the building's status as a "national shrine", it did not accommodate governmental offices. After several months of negotiations, Federal Hall Memorial Associates

31428-425: The rotunda. John Quincy Adams Ward's bronze statue of George Washington is placed on the building's ceremonial front steps. At the top of the stairs, a colonnade supports a plain triangular pediment. The lack of sculpture on the pediment may have been influenced by aesthetic considerations, as there were few "qualified sculptors" at the time of the building's construction, according to Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis. Next to

31622-484: The security screening process took too long, driving away many visitors. This measure increased attendance fourfold. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and ABC News invited the 2008 United States presidential candidates , John McCain and Barack Obama , to a town hall forum at Federal Hall, though both candidates declined the offer. McCain did host his own town hall forum at Federal Hall in June 2008. The American Express Foundation donated $ 75,000 in 2012 toward

31816-421: The setbacks, the American economy was once more "bouncing back". What had happened during these heady years? Clark wrote: But the picture is too nuanced simply to dump all the responsibility on financiers. Most Wall Street banks didn't actually go around the US hawking dodgy mortgages; they bought and packaged loans from on-the-ground firms such as Countrywide Financial and New Century Financial, both of which hit

32010-417: The stone an inch or two [3–5 cm] and chipped off pieces ranging from three inches to a foot [8–30 cm] in diameter. The ornamental iron grill work protecting each window was broken or shattered. ... the Assay Office was a wreck. ... It was as though some gigantic force had overturned the building and then placed it upright again, leaving the framework uninjured but scrambling everything inside. The area

32204-436: The stones from the bastions as materials for the foundation. Slavery had been introduced to Manhattan in 1626, but it was not until December 13, 1711, that the New York City Common Council made a market at the foot of Wall Street the city's first official slave market for the sale and rental of enslaved Black people and Indians. The market operated from 1711 to 1762 at the corner of Wall and Pearl Streets, and consisted of

32398-406: The street from 1653 to 1699. During the 18th century, the location served as a slave market and securities trading site , and from 1703 onward, the location of New York's city hall, which became Federal Hall . In the early 19th century, both residences and businesses occupied the area, but increasingly the latter predominated, and New York's financial industry became centered on Wall Street. During

32592-493: The structure had become too small to accommodate all of the customs duties of the U.S. Custom House for the Port of New York. The U.S. government decided to move the customs offices one block to 55 Wall Street , then occupied by the Merchants' Exchange. The federal government of the United States signed a lease with the Merchants' Exchange in February 1862, intending to move into the building that May. The customs offices were moved to 55 Wall Street starting in August 1862. After

32786-404: The surrounding area lost 100,000 jobs according to one estimate. Since telecommunications costs were coming down, banks and brokerage firms could move away from the Financial District to more affordable locations. One of the firms looking to move away was the NYSE. In 1998, the NYSE and the city struck a $ 900 million deal which kept the NYSE from moving across the river to Jersey City ; the deal

32980-449: The trading floor alone, and 200 miles (320 km) of fiber-optic cable below ground. Finance professor Charles R. Geisst wrote that the exchange has become "inextricably intertwined into New York's economy". Wall Street pay, in terms of salaries and bonuses and taxes, is an important part of the economy of New York City , the tri-state metropolitan area , and the United States . Anchored by Wall Street, New York City has been called

33174-490: The world still watches us to see how we protect those freedoms." Until 1694, Great Britain had an elaborate system of licensing ; the most recent was seen in the Licensing of the Press Act, 1662 . No publication was allowed without the accompaniment of a government-granted license. Fifty years earlier, at a time of civil war , John Milton wrote his pamphlet Areopagitica (1644). In this work Milton argued forcefully against this form of government censorship and parodied

33368-399: The world's most economically powerful city and leading financial center . As such, a falloff in Wall Street's economy could have "wrenching effects on the local and regional economies". In 2008, after a downturn in the stock market, the decline meant $ 18 billion less in taxable income, with less money available for "apartments, furniture, cars, clothing and services". Estimates vary about

33562-417: Was a section of what is today's Pearl Street . The original wall was constructed under orders from Director General of the Dutch West India Company , Peter Stuyvesant , at the start of the first Anglo-Dutch war soon after New Amsterdam was incorporated in 1653. Fearing an over land invasion of English troops from the colonies in New England (at the time Manhattan was easily accessible by land because

33756-454: Was allowed to operate the interior as a museum in January 1940. The memorial opened on Washington's Birthday , February 22, 1940. The New York Herald Tribune said that, within the United States, Federal Hall Memorial was only matched by Mount Vernon and Independence Hall "in historical interest". The building celebrated its 100th anniversary on Washington's Birthday in 1942. Among the other events that took place at Federal Hall Memorial in

33950-407: Was also provided. A coin division was on the east side of the building, on the floor of the rotunda, toward Pine Street. Silver was stored in the northwest corner of the building, in the basement. An armory was placed on the upper stories, and various fortifications were mounted at the top of the building to protect the money. Adjoining the Subtreasury to the east was the United States Assay Office ,

34144-460: Was also the location of the passing of the Bill of Rights . Alexander Hamilton , who was the first Treasury secretary and "architect of the early United States financial system", is buried in the cemetery of Trinity Church , as is Robert Fulton famed for his steamboats . In the first few decades, both residences and businesses occupied the area, but increasingly business predominated. "There are old stories of people's houses being surrounded by

34338-414: Was an emerging tension between the media and the government. By the mid-1760s, there were 24 weekly newspapers in the 13 colonies, and the satirical attack on the government became common features in American newspapers. In the Victorian era , the press became more influential than it had been previously, to the dismay of some readers. Thomas Carlyle , in his essay " Signs of the Times " (1829), said that

34532-438: Was arrested for committing libel against the British royal governor and was imprisoned and tried there. His acquittal on the grounds that the material he had printed was true established freedom of the press as it was later defined in the Bill of Rights . City Hall was first remodeled in 1765, when a third story was added. That October, delegates from nine of the Thirteen Colonies met as the Stamp Act Congress in response to

34726-405: Was at one point held by the New-York Historical Society . Nassau Street had originally curved around the building to the west, while Broad Street had run to the east. Nassau Street was straightened after the building was demolished, and it runs to the west of the modern Federal Hall National Memorial. The current Greek Revival structure was the first building that was specifically constructed for

34920-399: Was bought by JPMorgan Chase forced by the U.S. government , and Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America in a similar shot-gun wedding. These failures marked a catastrophic downsizing of Wall Street as the financial industry goes through restructuring and change. Since New York's financial industry provides almost one-fourth of all income produced in the city, and accounts for 10% of

35114-445: Was built as the U.S. Custom House for the Port of New York before serving as a Subtreasury building from 1862 to 1925. The current national memorial commemorates the historic events that occurred at the previous structure. The memorial building is constructed of Tuckahoe marble . Its architectural features include a colonnade of Doric columns, as well as a domed rotunda designed by the sculptor John Frazee . The facade and part of

35308-461: Was chosen as the nation's first seat of government under the Constitution . The 1st Congress met there beginning on March 4, 1789. The first inauguration of George Washington , the first-ever inauguration of a President of the United States , occurred on the balcony of the building on April 30, 1789. Many of the most important legislative actions in the United States occurred with the 1st Congress at Federal Hall. For example, on September 25, 1789,

35502-449: Was closed for weather-related reasons, the first time since Hurricane Gloria in September 1985 and the first two-day weather-related shutdown since the Blizzard of 1888 . Wall Street's architecture is generally rooted in the Gilded Age . The older skyscrapers often were built with elaborate facades, which have not been common in corporate architecture for decades. There are numerous landmarks on Wall Street, some of which were erected as

35696-463: Was critical and often slanderous towards Struensee's own regime, he reinstated some restrictions regarding the freedom of press a year later, October 7, 1771. After the Italian unification in 1861, the Albertine Statute of 1848 was adopted as the constitution of the Kingdom of Italy . The Statute granted the freedom of the press with some restrictions in case of abuses and in religious matters, as stated in Article 28: The press shall be free, but

35890-403: Was described as the "largest in city history to prevent a corporation from leaving town". In 2001, the Big Board , as some termed the NYSE, was described as the world's "largest and most prestigious stock market". When the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001 , the attacks "crippled" the communications network and destroyed many buildings in the Financial District, although

36084-415: Was famously summarized by the 20th-century American journalist , A. J. Liebling , who wrote, "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one". Freedom of the press gives the printer or publisher exclusive control over what the publisher chooses to publish, including the right to refuse to print anything for any reason. If the author cannot reach a voluntary agreement with a publisher to produce

36278-455: Was introduced in Sweden in 1766 ( Swedish Freedom of the Press Act ), due in part to classical liberal member of parliament, Ostrobothnian priest, Anders Chydenius . Excepted and liable to prosecution was only vocal opposition to the king and the Church of Sweden . The act was largely rolled back after King Gustav 's coup d'état in 1772, restored after the overthrowing of his son, Gustav IV of Sweden in 1809, and fully recognized with

36472-410: Was of masonry, brick, and marble. The original design called for a colonnade of eight columns facing Wall and Pine Streets, square pilasters on Nassau Street, a massive coffered dome protruding above the roof, and a cruciform floor plan. The building would have also been decorated with details such as acroteria , metopes , and triangular pediments . Town suggested that Samuel Thomson, architect of

36666-411: Was one of the few structures in the area to survive an 1804 fire that caused $ 2 million in damage (equivalent to $ 47 million in 2023). With the opening of the current New York City Hall in 1812, the New York City government no longer needed Federal Hall, and the building was demolished. Part of the original railing and balcony floor, where Washington had been inaugurated, is on display in the memorial and

36860-514: Was reduced four times before 1960, each time stimulating a mini-rally and boosting volume, and when the Federal Reserve reduced the margin requirements from 90% to 70%. These changes made it somewhat easier for investors to buy stocks on credit. The growing national economy and prosperity led to a recovery during the 1960s, with some down years during the early 1970s in the aftermath of the Vietnam War . Trading volumes climbed; in 1967, according to Time Magazine , volume hit 7.5 million shares

37054-403: Was safe" on Wall Street. A few days later, on October 24, stock values plummeted. The stock market crash of 1929 ushered in the Great Depression , in which a quarter of working people were unemployed, with soup kitchens, mass foreclosures of farms, and falling prices. During this era, development of the Financial District stagnated, and Wall Street "paid a heavy price" and "became something of

37248-423: Was subjected to numerous threats; one bomb threat in 1921 led to detectives sealing off the area to "prevent a repetition of the Wall Street bomb explosion". September 1929 was the peak of the stock market. October 3, 1929, was when the market started to slip, and it continued throughout the week of October 14. In October 1929, renowned Yale economist Irving Fisher reassured worried investors that their "money

37442-405: Was that Wall Street provided a fourth of all personal income earned in the city, and 10% of New York City's tax revenue. The city's securities industry, enumerating 163,400 jobs in August 2013, continues to form the largest segment of the city's financial sector and an important economic engine, accounting in 2012 for 5 percent of private sector jobs in New York City, 8.5 percent (US$ 3.8 billion) of

37636-453: Was used as the Custom House. The rotunda is topped by a self-supporting masonry saucer dome with a skylight at its center. The dome contains narrow panels with curved bottoms, as well as anthemion motifs at their top and bottom ends. The skylight is surrounded by raised rosettes . The decorations were originally in a gold, blue, and white color scheme. The floor of the rotunda contains gray and cream marble blocks in concentric circles. At

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