Wall Street's FASCINATING Origin Story | How it Became Manhattan

I'm standing on Wall Street with the New York Stock Exchange behind me

If you come stand where I am, you will be surrounded by some of the newer, tallest buildings in the entire city

But I'm also surrounded by some of the oldest buildings in the city

This is where New York began to grow into what it is today

In this lesson, I want to show you how it went from an indigenous people's forest to a Dutch colony

to the U.S. capital and eventually to the financial center that it is today

And I also want to show you how you can go see remnants of what once was. The Lenape peoples had been living on this island for centuries

until the Dutch arrived in the early 1600s and allegedly bought the land from the tribes

The Dutch quickly started developing it as a colony and named it New Amsterdam

This map shows what the colony was like. You can see that it only covered a small portion of the island of Manhattan, just on the southern tip

They also built a wall on the northern border, right here, as protection against potential invaders like the British or the Algonquin tribes

This wall became Wall Street, which is where I'm standing right now. And if you come here today, you can see markers on the road that show exactly where the wall once stood

In addition, the Dutch are kind of experts at controlling water. So they quickly began to transform the landscape by using water

They turned streams into full cs and began building land out into the water, expanding their territory

The indigenous peoples moved north and were continually forced out of their land until just a small number of the tribes that were there remained

As more European settlers came here over the coming years, this new population grew at a rapid rate, and the demand for limited space kept increasing

So they continued to expand the land. You can see on this map of New Amsterdam, this street that ran along the waterfront right here

But today it looks like this. On this map, Pearl Street is right here

All of this land was created over the years. Only about 40 years after New Amsterdam was settled, the British forcibly took the land from the Dutch without a single battle

You could say they used their powers of persuasion. This is when it got its name New York

They renamed it New York, dismantled the defensive northern wall, and filled in this c, naming it Broad Street

I am standing next to Broad Street, which is where the c used to be

And once the British got controlled, they filled in this c, and it's evolved into what it is today

And there are buildings that were lining this area, and there's one of which right here, Francis Tavern

that still stands, that was standing back when this used to be a c. Today's structure of Francis Tavern is right down the road from the Stock Exchange

So when the British settlers started to feel dissatisfied with the King of England, they began planning a rebellion

And they held their first secretive meetings right here in this pub, Francis Tavern

Such meetings like this led to plots to overthrow the British rule, which they did

After the Revolutionary War, just days after the British troops had left Manhattan

George Washington invited his troops from the Continental Army to visit with him at this pub in the Long Room So this pub witnessed the beginning and the end of the revolution and the bloody creation of a new government Today it still a fully operational bar and eatery that you can go visit

Just down the street from Francis Tavern is one of the oldest parks in the city that still has traces of the revolution that you can go see today

Right now I'm across the street from Battery Park on the very southern tip of the island

right where Broadway starts. Behind me is Bowling Green. This is the very first park in New York

City and there used to be a statue in the middle of King George III because it was put here when

this was under British rule. In 1776, George Washington sent a copy of the Declaration of

Independence to New York City. When it was read here, a lot of people got really excited that they

were going to be starting their own nation and they marched down Broadway to Bowling Green right

here and they took the statue and pulled it down and melted it down to make cannonballs and bullets

so that they could fight the war that was coming. Something fun you can see for yourself while

you're here is that the fence surrounding this park is actually the original fence that was built

here and it was built in 1771 before the revolution had happened. So when this fence was built they

put British emblems along the top of it and you can still see where those emblems were because

Because when they were torn off, these jagged edges were left behind that you can still see

After the Revolutionary War, the then small city of New York became the political capital

of the newly established United States. Which means that Federal Hall, located right here, became the new capitol building for

the country. This brings us back to Wall Street, which is where George Washington was inaugurated

as the first president of the United States of America. And behind me there's a statue of him that stands almost exactly where he did when he

he was inaugurated. This is Federal Hall and it used to be built out of wood

George Washington stood on the balcony here during the ceremony. And a portion of that balcony is now in this building

and you can go in and see it today. Okay, so all of this stuff you'll see on the map

that I made for this course, but all of this is within just a couple blocks

down here in the heart of Manhattan. Now that we've talked about the history of who lived here

and how the land changed hands, let's talk about how all these buildings got here

The financial district today is dominated by skyscrapers, but the evolution of the buildings

here is a story of fire, bedrock, and a couple churches that withstood time

So I'm standing on Wall Street, and behind me over here is Federal Hall, over here is

the New York Stock Exchange, and if we just keep walking up this street, we're going to

come to Trinity Church, which is just standing, towering over this whole street

But this is not the first church that was built in this spot. The original Trinity Church was built in 1698, but in 1776, at the beginning of the Revolution

as British troops arrived to take back what they viewed as their city, a massive fire broke out during the attack and burned its way up Broadway

destroying many wooden buildings that were here, including Trinity Church. This map shows the huge area destroyed by the fire

This is St Paul Chapel just a few blocks up the road and during the fire some people climbed up onto the roof and started stomping out the embers that were falling onto the building These makeshift firefighters stayed out all night protecting the building and because of that this is one of the oldest standing buildings in the whole area

So many wooden buildings were burned up by fires that the city actually decreed by 1845 that wood could no longer be used for their construction

They rebuilt Trinity Church shortly after the Revolution, but it had structural issues that started to show themselves over time

So it was demolished in the mid-1800s, and in 1846, the church that we see today was built on that spot

Rather than using wood, the church was built with brownstone. This helped to set the trend for using brownstone on the facades of homes across the city, which is still a distinctive feature of many New York neighborhoods

The new codes that banned the usage of wood coincided with the production of better steel

which allowed architects to build these buildings much taller. In fact, before the new rule, Trinity Church had been the tallest building in the U.S. for a time

But soon, this island would be the epicenter of tall buildings. In addition to the technological advances in steel

another reason that Manhattan supports so many of the tall skyscrapers today is because of its unique geology

Beneath the soil that's now covered by pavement and roads is a type of bedrock called schist

Though it can be really difficult to reach the schist, sometimes developers have to dig hundreds of feet to get to it

this bedrock makes for a really strong foundation for tall buildings. But the skyscrapers are particularly concentrated in the lower part of Manhattan for a couple reasons

At the time when the tall buildings were first going up, there was a massive influx of new immigrants into the city

which meant that there was a huge labor force to help build the leading commerce and financial center of the world

To put it simply, because the southern tip of the island was the first to develop with walls and streets and buildings

it became very densely populated. And the city converted this density into the first district committed to finance

So this takes us back to the heart of the financial district, the New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street, and the World Trade Center

As I mentioned, the New York Stock Exchange is on Wall Street. This is where the border was created by the Dutch to separate their colony from other people

This is where many financial decisions take place, decisions that affect the country and the whole world

Because of the New York Stock Exchange, a lot of other financial companies historically put themselves on or near Wall Street

Though today this is still an important financial area, Wall Street represents something much bigger than just this road

It has come to symbolize the financial market of the United States

And one symbol that represents this financial power and the idea of Wall Street is the Wall Street bull

A lot of people come to see this bull, though it is a strange story of how it got here

The statue randomly showed up outside the New York Stock Exchange one night in 1989

With the help of some friends, an artist named Arturo Di Madica brought the bull off of a truck

and put it under a Christmas tree that was there at the time. He created the bull in a workshop in Soho and later said that it was meant to represent the thriving bull market

But the police regarded it as vandalism and shortly after it was placed there they impounded it in a local warehouse But not before the locals decided that they loved it Many newspapers reported the removal of this artwork which led to a lot of residents to protest and petition to keep it Its permanent home is now

nearby Bowling Green and it has become an established part of the financial district

So I've showed you a lot of history of how the financial district came to be, but we can't talk about this area without mentioning the World Trade Center

For most locals and tourists, it's hard not to look at the skyline of the financial district

without thinking about the World Trade Center. In the 70s, the World Trade Centers were built here

known as the Twin Towers. The Twin Towers used to be the two tallest buildings in the city and

shaped the New York skyline. When two planes flew into the buildings in 2001, thousands lost their

lives and the city went through enormous change. The site that once held the Twin Towers and now

holds the Freedom Tower still has a heavy gravitational pull. The 9-11 memorial is here that commemorates the lives lost

What was once an old wound is now a meaningful place of quiet reflection, which is literally

intended since the memorial is a reflection pool. There's also a museum which is under the memorial, which is absolutely worth a visit

But brace yourself though because it's not easy to stomach, although it is a very powerful experience

So directly behind me is where the World Trade Centers were, and this is the memorial and

Museum today, and now there is One World Trade, which is this super, super tall one right behind

me, which still acts as the trade center. But just across the street in this little park where I am

is the sphere. And the sphere is a statue that used to stand in the plaza at the base of the

World Trade Centers. And it was there on 9-11 when debris fell on it, and it still bears the scars

of what happened on that day. St. Paul's makes another notable appearance in history. Since 225

years after being saved from fire, the church returned its favor to the community and offered

its structure as a place of respite for the firefighters and emergency response teams

In addition to memorials, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center area has allowed for a

restorative return to business, commerce, celebration, and general living. One World Trade

is mostly offices now, but is also host to an observation deck at the top of the skyscraper

that offers spectacular views of the city. The elevator ride is an experience itself. It plays

a video as you ascend that shows the city developing from the forested island that it used to be

to what it currently is today. It's an impressive sight and a way to take in this history that

you now know from this course in about 47 seconds. When you walk around the financial district today, you might think about skyscrapers and

you might think about money, but try to think about all the change that this area has seen

The revolution, the fires, the land expanding out into water, and the indigenous peoples whose

stories were almost practically erased, but are still present in the area in small numbers

We may have more detailed records of what has happened since the Dutch arrived, but when you

When you hear these stories, think too of the many stories lost over the years

Hopefully we can try to bring some of them back as you walk these streets

From the next lesson onward, we're going to follow Broadway north toward Uptown