How Wall Street Got Its Name November 02 2014
When hearing the Word "Wall Street", most people link it to the World's Financial Center and the New York Stock Exchange, besides getting disgusted, aroused and angry. The Wall Street wasn't always a moral free zone where stealing and creating crises would make one rich. The street was named by the Dutch.
Ever since New Amsterdam's (New York's name before the takeover of the English) founding, the Dutch have been worried about attack. The first Major building in the city was Fort Amsterdam, at the base of Broadway. Today's Bowling Green Park.
It housed a garrison of soldiers supplied by the Dutch government. The company's main concern was protecting the harbor - and, by extension, its shipping monopoly - from Pirates and foreign invaders, primarily the Spanish and the English.
By 1652, relations between the Netherlands and England had soured to the point that these two Protestant allies were at war. When the word war reached New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant and the fledgling city government hastily voted to build a wall.
Peter Stuyvesant
The wall's primary purpose was to protect the town from an overland invasion from the north. Stuyvesant envisioned English citizens from Connecticut marching onto Manhattan and down the island to the city. In March 1653 funds were collected by public subscription to pay for an nine-foot-high wooden bulwark along the northern fringe of the settlement.
The path in front of it was soon nicknamed "the wall street."
