The Financial District, also commonly referred to as FiDi, located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, is a neighborhood on the southeastern side of Manhattan which comprises the offices and headquarters of many of the city’s major financial institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The World Trade Center was located in the neighborhood until the September 11 attacks, as is the building’s successor. The neighborhood roughly overlaps the boundaries of the New Amsterdam settlement in the late 17th century. The Financial District has witnessed growth in its population to approximately 43,000 as of 2014, nearly double the 23,000 recorded at the 2000 Census.
HISTORY
As a district, it encompasses roughly the area south of City Hall Park but excluding Battery Park and Battery Park City. The heart of the Financial District is often considered to be the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street, both of which are contained entirely within the district. The northeastern part of the financial district (along Fulton Street and John Street) was known in the early 20th century as the Insurance District, due to the large number of insurance companies who were either headquartered there, or maintained their New York offices there.
Federal Hall National Memorial, on the site of the first US Capitol and the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States, is located at the corner of Wall Street and Nassau Street.
Until the late 20th and early 21st century, the neighborhood was considered to be primarily a destination for daytime traders and office workers from around New York City and the surrounding areas. The neighborhood now has a growing number of full-time residents, with estimates made in 2010 showing that there were approximately 61,000 people living in the area, a jump from the 15 to 20 thousand living there before 2001, with many buildings being converted from office space to apartments and condominiums during the 1990s and 2000s.
It has a number of tourist attractions such as the adjacent South Street Seaport Historic District, the New York City Police Museum, and Museum of American Finance. Bowling Green is the starting point of traditional ticker-tape parades on Broadway, where here it is also known as the Canyon of Heroes. The Museum of Jewish Heritage and theSkyscraper Museum are both in adjacent Battery Park City which is also home to the World Financial Center.
Although the term is sometimes used as a synonym for “Wall Street”, the latter term is often applied metonymously to the financial markets as a whole (and is also a street in the district), whereas “the Financial District” implies an actual geographical location.
