Wall Street Dispatches
At least as of 3 p.m. this afternoon, I can definitively report that there was no “blood in streets” in front of The New York Stock Exchange, notwithstanding this week’s market roller coaster.
Instead, what I saw (along with my son and a family friend) was the semi-carnival atmosphere that’s usually on display in front of the Exchange and adjacent Federal Hall.
Wall Street Plaza
All the traffic is pedestrian (no cars), thanks to the multiple rows of strategically-placed traffic bollards at either end of the block cum plaza; the only commercial traffic consists of the street vendors selling pretzels, hot dogs, and soft drinks.
And no protests or other signs of unrest — just oblivious tourists snapping pictures (they must all be in cash).
In fact, the only visible sign that something might not be quite right in the financial world at the moment was a graffiti I ran into not on Wall Street, oddly, but about a mile away in the West Village a little while later.
Not pulling any punches, it simply read “f*ck the bankers.”
