March 06, 2004
FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY
I don't know how I did it but during the umpzillion years I've lived in New York and the 10 years I've lived in Lower Manhattan, I managed to never actually see the New York Stock Exchange. Until today. Wombling up from Bowling Green, I noticed a huge police presence on Broad Street. Checkpoint after checkpoint. It is mortifying that I had to walk up the block to figure out what they were guarding.
It seems appropriate that there is so much anxiety and implied violence around one of Money™'s top wholesale outlets. I don't know if the military and police presence was standard before 9/11. I don't think it was. It seems permanent now.
There were protesters from an anti-Mobil and Exxon group in front of the Exchange. Two were dressed as tigers and they danced about in the misty rain, handing out flyers. Japanese tourists snapped pictures of them, the stock exchange and me taking photos of both.
