There has been a financial district in Lower Manhattan for over a century. Its most famous road, Wall Street, has become the metonym of business prosperity and of the Financial District itself. Wall Street and the surrounding area has been home to some of the largest and most wealthy banks, insurance companies, and financial consulting firms in history. However, Manhattan’s Financial District hasn’t been a real financial district for years, and almost no major financial institutions call Lower Manhattan home anymore.
The New York Financial District (or FiDi) encompasses nearly all of Lower Manhattan. Its boundaries are West Street to the west (appropriately enough), the East River to the east (also appropriately), Battery Park to the south, and generally City Hall Park to the north. Zuccotti Park sits unambiguously near the center of the FiDi, 350 feet away from the beginning of Wall Street, and the OWSites have chosen this as the place of their very symbolic occupation. But what is located there to rage against? There is not a single major American investment bank in New York's Financial District today. Goldman Sachs, a definite target of OWS effluvium, was the last one to leave, back in 2009. It built its own tower at 200 West Street, just outside the FiDi in Battery Park City and about half a mile northwest of Zuccotti Park by foot. Of "non-major" American investment banks in the FiDi, there are precious few. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co is one – and it has an interesting history, but little relevance to OWS or the world market, so I won’t digress upon it.
Zero of the so-called Big Four Banks are in the FiDi. Wells Fargo never has been. JPMorgan Chase vacated 60 Wall Street in 2001, and is currently located at 270 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, though the actual bank portion of the corporation is headquartered in Chicago, at 10 South Dearborn. Citigroup hasn't been on Wall Street since 1993, and currently takes up the entire block at Park Avenue and 53rd Street, also in Midtown. Bank of America is currently headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It also has a presence in Bank of America Tower, once again in Midtown. Its subsidiary, Merrill Lynch, is in New York at 4 World Financial Center, which is across West Street in Battery Park City, not the FiDi.
For the most part, the only actual banks in the FiDi are Deutsche Bank USA at 60 Wall Street (though Deutsche Bank itself is of course headquartered in Frankfurt) and Bank of New York Mellon at One Wall Street (where it has been since 1988).
If we segue to insurance companies rather than investment banks, there are only two major insurance companies headquartered in New York. AIG sold its FiDi building at 70 Pine St in 2009. Its lease expires in 2013, and it's probably being kicked out by the building's new owners. MetLife – headquartered in NYC for its entire history – has never been in the FiDi.
What about the vague category of "financial services" ? Well, Morgan Stanley has been in Midtown since 1993. American Express has been in the World Financial Center since 1986. HSBC Bank USA is headquartered in Midtown and hasn't occupied their iconic 140 Broadway location since 1999. Capital One (which currently owns ING Direct USA) is headquartered in Tysons Corner VA and has never had a major presence in New York City.
MERSCORP, Inc, the holding company which arguably should be the real recipient of most of OWS's complaints (and which I will definitely write a lot more about), is and always has been headquartered in Reston, VA.
Occupy Wall Street does not have more than a couple viable corporate targets in the Financial District. What are they accomplishing by their "occupation" there? Not a whole lot. Most of the old bank buildings on Wall Street are now apartment buildings. Most of the financial companies have moved either to Midtown or left New York entirely for such places as Wilmington, Jersey City, Dallas, Boca Raton, Raleigh-Durham, Salt Lake City, and even Bangalore, India. In any meaningful sense, New York City doesn’t have a financial district anymore, and really hasn’t for over a decade.
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