New York Stock Exchange Building

The New York Stock Exchange Building is the main office of the New York Stock Exchange, located in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It has two connected parts. The older part, at 18 Broad Street, was built between 1901 and 1903. The newer part, at 11 Wall Street, was added between 1920 and 1922.

The building at 18 Broad Street has a beautiful marble outside with columns facing east and west. Inside, there is a very large room where people trade, and another smaller room called the Garage. There are also offices and meeting rooms in the upper levels of both buildings.

Over time, the New York Stock Exchange needed more space, so three more trading floors were added in the late 1900s. But with the rise of online trading in the 2000s, those extra floors closed in 2007. The building became very important and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1978 and a city landmark in 1985. It is also part of the Wall Street Historic District, which was created in 2007.

Site

The New York Stock Exchange Building is located in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. It takes up an entire block bounded by Broad Street to the east, Wall Street to the north, New Street to the west, and Exchange Place to the south. The area of the site is 31,350 square feet (2,913 m²).

After the September 11 attacks, safety measures were added around the building, including a security zone and a pedestrian-only zone. Bollards were placed at nearby intersections to help protect the area. In 2017, plans were made to improve the pedestrian zone, adding benches near the Fearless Girl statue and removing some subway entrances, which was approved in 2019.

Architecture

The New York Stock Exchange Building is the home of the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies. It is made up of two connected buildings. The older building at 18 Broad Street was designed by George B. Post in the Classical Revival style and finished in 1903. The newer building at 11 Wall Street was designed by Trowbridge & Livingston and finished in 1922.

Facade

18 Broad Street

18 Broad Street is in the middle of the block. It has a facade made of white Georgia marble and stands 156 feet (48 m) tall. The Broad Street side is inspired by ancient Roman designs.

The building has columns along Broad and New Streets. The windows above the columns are very large. There is a triangle-shaped design above the columns on Broad Street, showing figures that represent trade and industry.

11 Wall Street

The building at 11 Wall Street is 22 stories tall and made of Georgia marble. It has steps back from the edge at several heights. The main door is at the corner of Wall and New Streets.

Interior

The building has many technology and data systems. When first built, it had special tubes and phones to help people talk to each other. There are many elevators and other machines to keep everything running.

Basement

The building has four levels below ground. There is a very strong safe in the basement. The lowest level is 42 feet (13 m) below ground and is protected by strong walls.

Trading floors

The main trading floor at 18 Broad Street covers 15,000 square feet (1,400 m²). It has tall columns and a high ceiling with lights. There are special bells that ring to start and end each trading day. There is another trading area at 11 Wall Street called "the Garage".

Upper stories

The sixth story has a big room with a high ceiling and decorated walls. The seventh story once had a club for members to eat, but it is now used for events. There are many offices and event spaces on the upper floors of both buildings.

History

Goods had been traded on Wall Street as early as 1725. Auctioneers helped people trade securities until 1792, when brokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement to form an organization for securities trading, which later became the NYSE. In 1817, the organization changed its name to the New York Stock and Exchange Board. The brokers began renting space just for trading securities, using several locations for the next half-century, including the Tontine Coffee House. Ten years later, they moved into the Merchants' Exchange at 55 Wall Street. The growth in trading during the late 1800s showed how much the Stock and Exchange Board was growing.

Previous structure

In December 1865, the Stock and Exchange Board moved to 10 Broad Street, a T-shaped building between Wall Street and Exchange Place. The New York Stock Exchange Building Company owned the building, and the Exchange used a room on the second floor. The number of members grew from 583 to 1,060 when they added the Open Board of Stock Brokers in 1869. The Stock and Exchange Board bought all the company's stock in November 1870. They bought the lot at 12 Broad Street, and the two buildings were combined and expanded following designs by James Renwick Jr. The Stock Exchange Building reopened in September 1871. Even after expanding, the building was too small by 1885. The board room was expanded again in 1887. By the end of the 1890s, the building was crowded again.

Replacement

Planning and construction

The NYSE bought the plots at 16–18 Broad Street in late 1898 after two years of talking. The site cost more than $800,000 and had the Union Building on it. The NYSE planned to build a new building starting in 1903. They bought the Swan Building on 8 Broad Street in January 1899 for $425,000. The land cost $1.25 million in total. Eight architects were asked to design a new building. The main idea was that the trading floor needed to be an open space with few interruptions. The NYSE wanted a building with banking space on the ground floor or without it. The plans had to fit the complicated shape of the lot, the unusual ground, and the need to move a large vault. The exchange thought about an eight-to-nine-story building with offices above the trading floor but decided against it.

In December 1899, the NYSE approved George B. Post's design. A committee was formed to watch over building the new structure. Post kept changing his design for the next year. By July 1900, the NYSE agreed to move to the New York Produce Exchange at Bowling Green while the new NYSE Building was being built. Post filed plans for the building with the New York City Department of Buildings on April 19, 1901. Eight days later, traders stopped working at the old building. The cornerstone was laid on September 9, 1901. Over two thousand guests attended the building's dedication ceremony on April 22, 1903. The trading floor opened the next day. The New York Times reported, "When the gavel fell many brokers vied with each other for the honor of making the first business transaction."

Early years and annex

After the NYSE Building was finished, the exchange had trouble, including the Panic of 1907, when the NYSE dropped by almost fifty percent from the year before. When World War I started in Europe in 1914, many investors sold their securities for gold. Because of this, the NYSE trading floor closed for four months in 1914, the first time such a long closure happened. Trading wartime stocks increased business at the New York Curb Exchange outside the NYSE Building, and by 1916, the NYSE thought about letting the Curb move inside. This plan failed, and the Curb built its own building at 86 Trinity Place in 1921. The Wall Street bombing happened outside the building on September 16, 1920, killing thirty-eight people and hurting hundreds more.

In the first two decades, especially after World War I ended, the NYSE grew a lot. The rebuilt 18 Broad Street space quickly became too small. In December 1918, the NYSE bought the Mortimer Building next to its existing building, giving the exchange an extra 3,220 square feet. The annex would give the building a full side on Wall Street, whereas before 18 Broad Street only faced Wall Street for 15 feet. The Mortimer Building's demolition started in mid-1919. The NYSE also rented the Wilks Building northwest of its existing building in January 1920; the lot was worth $1.9 million. Demolition of the Wilks Building began in June 1920.

Trowbridge and Livingston were hired to design an annex on the Mortimer and Wilks sites, while Marc Eidlitz and Son got the contract to build the annex. Plans for an annex at 11 Wall Street, rising twenty-two stories above a basement, were finished in February 1920. The NYSE would rent the first eight stories and the basement, including several stories for an expanded trading floor known as the "Garage", while the upper stories would be rented to office tenants. By August 1922, the annex was almost done, and several firms had already signed leases for about 60 percent of the available office space. The annex's trading floor opened during the last week of December 1922. The New York Stock Exchange Safe Deposit Company started operating the vaults in the basement that year.

Later operations and expansions

1920s to 1940s

The office annex was not enough for the NYSE's long-term growth. In mid-1926, the exchange rented three floors at the nearby Commercial Cable Building on 20 Broad Street. The ground floor would connect to that of 18 Broad Street, while the first and second floors of that building would become a single bond trading room with a high ceiling. These floors were connected to 18 Broad Street inside, although they were separate buildings. In 1928, the NYSE bought not only the Commercial Cable Building but also the Blair Building, taking control of all the property on the city block.

The NYSE's growth stopped suddenly with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, when share prices on the exchange dropped 23 percent in two days, helping cause the Great Depression. The NYSE trading floor closed for over a week during the Depression, in March 1933, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Banking Act. The marble sculptures of the pediment on Broad Street, which had gotten worse over the years, were replaced in 1936. The new figures were made of metal, though this was kept secret for eighteen years. At the end of the Great Depression, the NYSE grew again. Manufacturers Trust took over the basement vaults in 1942 when the NYSE Safe Deposit Company was dissolved. During World War II, women were allowed to trade in the building for the first time in the Exchange's history.

1950s to 1970s

By 1954, the NYSE was planning to replace the building at 20 Broad Street with a skyscraper, part of which would hold extra space for the NYSE. The exchange had the right to expand its trading floor to 20 Broad Street if needed. The building, designed by Kahn & Jacobs and Sidney Goldstone, was finished in 1956 with 27 stories and 421,000 square feet. The NYSE used the second through fourth floors at 20 Broad Street, matching the first through third floors of its main building, as exhibition space. The new building was not part of the NYSE Building, and the New York Life Insurance Company bought 20 Broad Street in 1959.

By the early 1960s, the NYSE needed to grow again and was thinking about moving out of its main building completely. Before, the building had housed some securities firms that were also members of the exchange, but the NYSE needed the space for itself, and the last firm moved out in late 1961. At that time, the NYSE's leaders hoped to buy land in Lower Manhattan and build a new building within five years. The NYSE made several ideas for new headquarters, but none happened. The exchange picked a site in Battery Park City in 1965 but dropped the plans the next year. The NYSE's leaders voted in 1967 to expand the trading floor into 20 Broad Street. The expansion, called the "Blue Room", opened in July 1969. It added 8,000 square feet to the 23,000-square-foot trading floor, which could fit almost two hundred more clerks. Also, some computer facilities moved to Paramus, New Jersey, between 1967 and 1969.

The NYSE wanted to build a new headquarters along the East River, at the eastern end of Wall Street, in the long term. These plans were stopped in 1970 because of the recession of 1969–1970. In 1977, the media talked about rumors that the NYSE and the American Stock Exchange would merge and build a new combined building; however, the merger did not happen at that time. As a short-term fix, the NYSE updated its visitors' center in 1979, adding a multi-story gallery with different displays next to the main trading floor.

1980s and 1990s

Still needing more space, the NYSE rented some offices at 100 Broadway, one block away, in 1980. The NYSE wanted to grow its trading floor again and, in 1985, announced an $11 million expansion of the Blue Room at 20 Broad Street, which would add 7,000 square feet to the trading floor. This expansion was finished by 1988. Also, the original bell inside the main trading floor was replaced in the late 1980s.

The NYSE, AMEX, and J.P. Morgan & Co. suggested making a financial "supercenter" on the block right east of the NYSE Building, across Broad Street, in 1992. The supercenter, to be built by Olympia and York and designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, would have had a 50-story tower above two 50,000-square-foot trading floors. After Olympia and York stopped because of money problems, a team of J.P. Morgan & Co., Lewis Rudin, Gerald D. Hines, and Fred Wilpon took over the project. The NYSE left the supercenter in 1993. The next year, NYSE leaders made a model trading floor for "3D trading", where securities were shown on electronic screens.

The NYSE started looking for new places for its headquarters in mid-1996. Over the past five years, over a thousand companies had joined the exchange, and trading had more than doubled. At one such place, along the East River at the end of Wall Street, developer Donald Trump suggested a 140-story building designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox for the NYSE, which would have been the world's tallest building. Other places being thought about included the Broad Exchange Building right to the southeast, as well as Bowling Green at the southern end of Manhattan. The NYSE also thought about moving to the World Financial Center in nearby Battery Park City, as well as a site in Jersey City across the Hudson River. City leaders offered $600 million in tax help to keep the NYSE in the Financial District, which made the new building more expensive.

In late 1996, the NYSE suggested growing the current building east above Broad Street, closing it to cars, and making a glass-covered area above the street. The city and state governments agreed to the plans in December 1998, but NYSE leaders were thinking about stopping these plans by the next year, because electronic trading was getting more popular. Even though financial firms had been grouped around the NYSE Building in the early 1900s, the popularity of electronic trading meant these firms no longer needed to be close to the building. The first plan for the area by HLW International was widely criticized, as was a change by Hugh Hardy, and the NYSE finally stopped the area plan. The NYSE Building stayed a popular tourist spot, and the exchange built a visitor center at the building for $2 million in the late 1990s. The NYSE also offered tours of the building, which were limited to 3,000 visitors a day.

2000s to present

As a short-term fix, the NYSE looked into opening a trading floor at 30 Broad Street less than a block to the south in 1998. The expansion, which opened in late 2000, was a 10,000-square-foot facility designed by SOM. The same year, the NYSE and the city and state governments of New York agreed to buy the block to the east. The plan included tearing down all buildings except for 23 Wall Street to make space for a 50-story skyscraper designed by SOM. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks caused only the third multi-day closing of the NYSE's trading floor in the building's history. After the attacks, the NYSE wanted to spread out its work, and the Lower Manhattan expansion was finally stopped in 2002 because the NYSE wanted to build a trading floor somewhere else.

Over the next few years, the rise in electronic trading made physical trading space less needed. The floor made up less than half of trades in 2007, down from 80 percent in 2004. Because of this, the 30 Broad Street trading floor closed in February 2007. The NYSE announced later that year that the Blue Room and Extended Blue Room at 20 Broad Street would close, leaving only the main floor and the Garage; The old space at 20 Broad Street became a home building in 2018. The NYSE Building's trading floor closed for two months in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, but electronic trading kept going. By the mid-2020s, The Wall Street Journal called the trading floor much quieter than in the 20th century, because of a trend of financial firms leaving the area. The Financial Times described the trading floor in 2021 as "largely a TV studio" and said that most trading was done electronically in New Jersey.

Impact

When the building at 18 Broad Street was finished, people praised its design. One writer said it looked like ancient Greek buildings but showed the energy of the modern world. Another architect called it a wonderful and successful design, especially liking how the columns separated the big windows.

The building became well-known and important. Its columns are even used in the New York Stock Exchange logo. Artists have also created works near the building, like a famous bull statue and a statue of a fearless girl. The building was officially recognized as a historic landmark in 1985 and is listed as an important historic place in the United States.

Main article: National Register of Historic Places Main articles: Wall Street Historic District, National Historic Landmark