I had to go all the way down to the Financial District today, which hasn’t happened since…ever. Now that I think about it, it was the first time I’d been down in that particular area, and I was sad I didn’t have time to linger. I saw the Stock Exchange, with a massive security cordon out front and tons of tourists snapping shots, and Trinity Church, and Federal Hall, with the big bronze statue of George Washington out front. He had a little cardboard sign in his hand, which read ‘Free Bonuses!’ Several of the streets (which are narrow and cobbled, in an oddly quaint way) were shut down as pedestrian walkways, which was nice. The tourists were all in tight clumps, so they were easy to circumnavigate. I didn’t pass the Wall Street bull statue, but I did see a vendor selling mini Wall Street bulls decorated in different patterns for “only” $10, which I thought was stupidly high. Although I only walked around down there for about ten minutes total, during that time, not one, but two older men came up to me, despite my headphones and lack of eye contact, to ask hopefully if I might need some directions, miss. (New Yorkers really love to give directions, particularly to young women.) And there was a man wearing a sandwich board, which said something about corporate greed and American capitalist repression, but what I really noticed was the young man interviewing the sandwich-board wearer and taking notes on a little pad. Undoubtedly sourcing local color in hopes of selling a freelance article somewhere. Everything down there looked as overall gray as Dorothy’s Kansas, but that might have just been the weather, or possibly my psychological response to anywhere money is actually made.
MS 11/9/09: Wall Street
Advertisement
