Wall Street is where the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) is located and it’s also the financial heart of the United States.
There is no doubt that we tend to identify this celebrated but also infamous area with the huge statue of the Charging Bull that adorns the square of Bowling Green.
The huge statue faces, on its pebble flooring, the last section of Broadway, and it has been there since the end of the 80s.
The statue symbolizes the upward trend of the stock market.
The Bull and the Bear represent real allegories of the rising and falling phases of the market. The Bear represents the phase of falling prices and, on the technical charts of prices, it indicates possibilities of withdrawal.
On the other hand, the Bull embodies the upturn of the market, representing strength and power.
It was first assumed that the city of New York commissioned the statue of the bull as a symbol of the strength of the nation. It was surprising, therefore, to discover that the placement of the statue was not an initiative planned by the Town Hall but that behind the creation and placement of this massive bronze bull there is an Italian artist: Di Modica. The statue truly embodies the positive approach of Americans towards the future of finance and it is undoubtedly pleasant.
The sculptor placed it on the sidewalk in front of the Stock Exchange overnight without asking for any permission on a night of December in 1989.
Given the size of the sculpture (about 4,000 kilos and about 4 meters in height and more than 5 meters in length), it certainly could not be ignored, so the building managers tried to find out how the installation was made without them knowing it. The Town Hall denied any involvement in the project and the statue was soon classified as an artistic joke.
While the search for the origins of the work proceeded, the artist, with serenity and impudence, distributed booklets on his activity as a sculptor, and he mentioned his creation of the Charging Bull, right next to the statue.
Later we discovered that the work of art had reached its destination on a truck equipped with a platform and in the eight minutes between a police patrol and the next, the statue had been removed from its wooden box and placed on the sidewalk where it stands today.
But since no one had ordered the statue, it was decided it had to disappear. But when the police arrived to remove the bronze work of art with the intention of transporting it to a warehouse for seized goods, as if it had been an illegally parked car, a group of protesters showed up near the statue to publicly prevent that from happening. Nonetheless, Di Modica's business had strangely worked because people had immediately fallen in love with the shiny, strong, gigantic animal. There had been many public protest actions and the hustle and bustle convinced the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to temporarily install the statue in the Bowling Green area, because where it was originally placed it was not well accepted and it looked disproportionate to its surroundings.
Since then, the Charging Bull has acquired a reputation that equals, and perhaps even surpasses, that of the Big Apple's older attractions. Thousands of tourists come to touch the bull (often in inappropriate parts because they say it brings good luck) and even to take pictures with him, as if it were a movie star. Many films have included him in their scenes in Manhattan and it has become an undeniable symbol of Wall Street.
The bull is here to stay!
