Wall Street, 1850's

Wall Street, 1850's

Our next tale -- Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street -- is set primarily on Wall Street in New York's finance district during the 1850's. The view above shows Trinity Church at the head of Wall Street and the old Custom House, seen at right with flag--today the Sub-Treasury--and a number of bank buildings in the Greek Revival style of architecture. Both Trinity Church and the old Custom House are both mentioned in Melville's story.

Wall Street, 1902

Wall Street, financial heart of the nation, is itself but little more than a third of a mile long from its head at Broadway to its foot at the East River, although its name is applied to a small district lying to the north and south. Functionally, Wall Street is a complex mechanism developed to provide the centralized banking and credit facilities and the efficient securities market place that modern industry and commerce demand. Walled in by towering structures, the street, by historical coincidence, is well named.

Wall Street Financial District, lower Manhattan

Wall Street, 2006

At this place in 1653, Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Amsterdam, ordered a protective wall built across what was then the colony's northernmost limit. It was not long before the city had pushed past this barrier, and under British rule the district flourished as a center of government and fashion. Following the Revolution, Wall Street became for a year the seat of the Federal Government, and here were located the establishments of such statesmen and leaders of commerce as Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. Read on...