Editing Wall Street (section)

===21st century===
In 2001, the ''Big Board'', as some termed the NYSE, was described as the world's "largest and most prestigious stock market".<ref name="nyt20011012">{{Cite news|last=Berenson|first=Alex|date=October 12, 2001|title=A Nation Challenged: the Exchange; Feeling Vulnerable At Heart of Wall St.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/12/business/a-nation-challenged-the-exchange-feeling-vulnerable-at-heart-of-wall-st.html|access-date=March 22, 2023|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=March 22, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322204844/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/12/business/a-nation-challenged-the-exchange-feeling-vulnerable-at-heart-of-wall-st.html|url-status=live}}</ref> When the [[Collapse of the World Trade Center|World Trade Center was destroyed]] on [[September 11, 2001 attacks|September 11, 2001]], the attacks "crippled" the communications network and destroyed many buildings in the Financial District, although the buildings on Wall Street itself saw only little physical damage.<ref name="nyt20011012" /> One estimate was that 45% of Wall Street's "best office space" had been lost.<ref name="usatoday20011024" /> The NYSE was determined to re-open on September 17, almost a week after the attack.<ref name="nyt20010916">{{Cite news|last1=Eaton|first1=Leslie|last2=Johnson|first2=Kirk|date=September 16, 2001|title=After the Attacks: Wall Street; Straining to Ring the Opening Bell|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/16/us/after-the-attacks-wall-street-straining-to-ring-the-opening-bell.html|access-date=March 22, 2023|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=January 25, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125201924/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/16/us/after-the-attacks-wall-street-straining-to-ring-the-opening-bell.html|url-status=live}}</ref> During this time [[Rockefeller Group Business Center]] opened additional offices at [[48 Wall Street]]. Still, after September 11, the financial services industry went through a downturn with a sizable drop in year-end bonuses of $6.5 billion, according to one estimate from a state comptroller's office.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/19/nyregion/neighborhood-report-lower-manhattan-at-job-lot-the-final-bargain-days.html|title=NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: LOWER MANHATTAN; At Job Lot, the Final Bargain Days|first=Bruce|last=Lambert|date=December 19, 1993|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=January 14, 2010|archive-date=January 24, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110124083124/http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/19/nyregion/neighborhood-report-lower-manhattan-at-job-lot-the-final-bargain-days.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

To guard against a vehicular bombing in the area, authorities built concrete barriers, and found ways over time to make them more aesthetically appealing by spending $5000 to $8000 apiece on [[bollard]]s. Parts of Wall Street, as well as several other streets in the neighborhood, were blocked off by specially designed bollards:

{{blockquote|... Rogers Marvel designed a new kind of bollard, a faceted piece of sculpture whose broad, slanting surfaces offer people a place to sit in contrast to the typical bollard, which is supremely unsittable. The bollard, which is called the Nogo, looks a bit like one of Frank Gehry's unorthodox culture palaces, but it is hardly insensitive to its surroundings. Its bronze surfaces actually echo the grand doorways of Wall Street's temples of commerce. Pedestrians easily slip through groups of them as they make their way onto Wall Street from the area around historic Trinity Church. Cars, however, cannot pass.|Blair Kamin in the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'', 2006<ref>{{cite news |first=Blair |last=Kamin |title=How Wall Street became secure, and welcoming |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |date=September 9, 2006 |url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-090806wallstreet-story,0,1233707.story |access-date=January 14, 2010 |archive-date=April 18, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140418084350/http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-090806wallstreet-story,0,1233707.story |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

''[[The Guardian]]'' reporter Andrew Clark described the years of 2006 to 2010 as "tumultuous", in which the heartland of America was "mired in gloom" with high unemployment around 9.6%, with average house prices falling from $230,000 in 2006 to $183,000, and foreboding increases in the national debt to $13.4 trillion, but that despite the setbacks, the American economy was once more "bouncing back".<ref name="guardian20101007">{{cite news |first=Andrew |last=Clark |title=Farewell to Wall Street: After four years as US business correspondent, Andrew Clark is heading home. He recalls the extraordinary events that nearly bankrupted America&nbsp;– and how it's bouncing back |newspaper=The Guardian |date=October 7, 2010 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/oct/07/farewell-to-wall-street-us-financial-crisis |access-date=January 15, 2011 |archive-date=November 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109032919/http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/oct/07/farewell-to-wall-street-us-financial-crisis |url-status=live }}</ref> What had happened during these heady years? Clark wrote:

{{blockquote|But the picture is too nuanced simply to dump all the responsibility on financiers. Most Wall Street banks didn't actually go around the US hawking dodgy mortgages; they bought and packaged loans from on-the-ground firms such as Countrywide Financial and New Century Financial, both of which hit a financial wall in the crisis. Foolishly and recklessly, the banks didn't look at these loans adequately, relying on flawed credit-rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's and Moody's, which blithely certified toxic mortgage-backed securities as solid ... A few of those on Wall Street, including maverick hedge fund manager John Paulson and the top brass at Goldman Sachs, spotted what was going on and ruthlessly gambled on a crash. They made a fortune but turned into the crisis's pantomime villains. Most, though, got burned&nbsp;– the banks are still gradually running down portfolios of non-core loans worth $800bn.|''[[The Guardian]]'' reporter Andrew Clark, 2010.<ref name="guardian20101007" />}}

[[File:Trinity Church NYC 004b.JPG|thumb|upright|left|[[Trinity Church (Manhattan)|Trinity Church]] looking west on Wall Street]]

The first months of 2008 was a particularly troublesome period which caused [[Federal Reserve System|Federal Reserve]] chairman [[Ben Bernanke]] to "work holidays and weekends" and which did an "extraordinary series of moves".<ref name="npr20080317">{{cite news |first1=Steve |last1=Inskeep |first2=Jim |last2=Zarroli |title=Federal Reserve Bolsters Wall Street Banks |publisher=NPR |date=March 17, 2008 |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88379863 |access-date=January 15, 2011 |archive-date=October 28, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028211740/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88379863 |url-status=live }}</ref> It bolstered U.S. banks and allowed Wall Street firms to borrow "directly from the Fed"<ref name="npr20080317" /> through a vehicle called the Fed's Discount Window, a sort of lender of last resort.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Foster|first=Sarah|title=Fed's Discount Window: How Banks Borrow Money From The U.S. Central Bank|url=https://www.bankrate.com/banking/federal-reserve/discount-window-banks-borrow-from-fed/|access-date=September 6, 2020|website=Bankrate|date=September 30, 2019 |language=en-US|archive-date=November 12, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112020055/https://www.bankrate.com/banking/federal-reserve/discount-window-banks-borrow-from-fed/|url-status=live}}</ref> These efforts were highly controversial at the time, but from the perspective of 2010, it appeared the Federal exertions had been the right decisions. 

By 2010, Wall Street firms, in Clark's view, were "getting back to their old selves as engine rooms of wealth, prosperity and excess".<ref name="guardian20101007" /> A report by Michael Stoler in ''[[The New York Sun]]'' described a "phoenix-like resurrection" of the area, with residential, commercial, retail and hotels booming in the "third largest business district in the country".<ref>{{cite news |first=Michael |last=Stoler |title=Refashioned: Financial District Is Booming With Business |newspaper=New York Sun |date=June 28, 2007 |url=http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/refashioned-financial-district-is-booming-with/57476/ |access-date=January 15, 2011 |archive-date=August 6, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806133239/https://www.nysun.com/real-estate/refashioned-financial-district-is-booming-with/57476/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> 

[[File:Day 14 Occupy Wall Street September 30 2011 Shankbone 47.JPG|thumb|The [[left-wing populist]] 2011 [[Occupy Wall Street]] movement in [[Zuccotti Park]], New York City.]]
At the same time, the investment community was worried about proposed legal reforms, including the ''Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act'' which dealt with matters such as credit card rates and lending requirements.<ref>{{cite news |first=Jill |last=Jackson |title=Wall Street Reform: A Summary of What's In the Bill |publisher=CBS News |date=June 25, 2010 |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wall-street-reform-a-summary-of-whats-in-the-bill/ |access-date=January 15, 2011 |archive-date=October 18, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131018235232/http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20008835-503544.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The NYSE closed two of its trading floors in a move towards transforming itself into an electronic exchange.<ref name="nyt20071014" /> Beginning in September 2011, the [[Occupy Wall Street]] movement disenchanted with the financial system protested in parks and plazas around Wall Street.<ref name="Moynihan 2011">{{cite web | last=Moynihan | first=Colin | title=Wall Street Protest Begins, With Demonstrators Blocked | website=City Room | date=September 27, 2011 | url=https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/wall-street-protest-begins-with-demonstrators-blocked/ | access-date=March 22, 2023 | quote=Throughout the afternoon hundreds of demonstrators gathered in parks and plazas in Lower Manhattan. They held teach-ins, engaged in discussion and debate and waved signs with messages like "Democracy Not Corporatization" or "Revoke Corporate Personhood." | archive-date=March 22, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322204843/https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/wall-street-protest-begins-with-demonstrators-blocked/ | url-status=live }}</ref>

On October 29, 2012, Wall Street was disrupted when New York and New Jersey were inundated by [[Hurricane Sandy]]. Its {{convert|14|ft|m|adj=mid|-high}} storm surge, a local record, caused massive street flooding nearby.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sandy-keeps-financial-markets-closed-tuesday/|title=Sandy keeps financial markets closed Tuesday|website=www.cbsnews.com|date=October 30, 2012|access-date=May 16, 2021|archive-date=June 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210618160806/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sandy-keeps-financial-markets-closed-tuesday/|url-status=live}}</ref> The NYSE was closed for weather-related reasons, the first time since [[Hurricane Gloria]] in September 1985 and the first two-day weather-related shutdown since the [[Blizzard of 1888]].