By Ahmad Al-Fraij
NEW YORK, Oct 31 (KUNA) -- The Wall Street is not only New York City's main tourist attraction, but also the economic engine of the United States and the world's leading financial center.
Some visitors of the city may wonder why that iconic street was called so though its name has nothing to do with economy and finance.
There are different accounts, dating from early the 17th century, of how the street got its name.
Some historians believe the name was derived from the Dutch "de Waalstraat" which refers to a wall, a strong wooden four-meter high palisade built to protect the Dutch settlers in the New Amsterdam settlement against the natives and the Britons.
Others believe it was named after Walloons or the Dutch "Waal" that refers to one of the 30 families of settlers who first arrived in the area in 1624.
After the British settlers occupied the city in 1699, they destroyed the wall and called the site the Wall Street.
In the course of time, the term "Wall Street" that symbolizes the strength and resilience become a metonym for the economic engine of the United States and the financial hub of world as a whole.
The economy of New York City shifted from agriculture to industry and then to finance between 1860 and 1920, but the city maintained its leading economic position.
The eight-block 1.1 km-long street runs northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street at the East River in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan.
The Wall Street area has been the scene of important events that shocked the world. In 1920, a massive bombing hit in front of the headquarters of J. P. Morgan and Company, a multinational banking institution known as The Corner with total assets amounting to USD 2.5 trillion; the attack left 38 deaths and 300 wounded people.
In 1907, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), located at 11 Wall Street, was hit by a sharp decline of the market value of stocks that was later on referred to the Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis.
On October 29, 1929, the stock market as hit by the Wall Street Crash or Black Tuesday or the Great Crash that began five days earlier.
It was the most devastating crash in the history of the United States that signaled the beginning of the Great Depression - a 12-year recession with spillover on all industrialized countries. On October 19, 1987, the stock market saw another crash referred to the Black Monday when stock markets around the world shed a huge value with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) losing 22.61 percent or 508 points to 1,738.74.
In 2007, the US economy underwent the subprime mortgage crisis, a nationwide banking emergency that lasted until 2010 and led to the US recession between December 2007 and June 2009.
The NYSE or the Big Board, founded in 1978, is the world's largest stock exchange with market capitalization of listed companies valued at USD 21.3 trillion in June 2017.
The NASDAQ Composite is one of the most-followed indices in US stock markets gauging the performance of the major information technology companies along with the Dow Jones Average, also known as the Dow 30, and S and P 500.
The Big Board is composed of 21 rooms used for the facilitation of trading; its main building and the 11 Wall Street building are considered the National Historic Landmarks.
The other historic landmarks at the Wall Street includes Federal Hall which was built in 1700 as New York's City Hall and later served as the first capitol building, the J.P. Morgan & Co. Building, the US headquarters of Deutsche Bank, the Trump Building and the former world headquarters of Citicorp.
The landmarks of Wall Street give a visitor of New York City a snapshot of the history of the financial wealth and economic resilience of the United States. (end) asf.gb