New York City 4K - Lower Manhattan - Driving Downtown

Charging Bull, which is sometimes referred to as the Wall Street Bull or the Bowling Green Bull, is a bronze sculpture that stands in Bowling Green in the Financial District in Manhattan, New York City. Originally guerrilla art, installed unofficially by Arturo Di Modica, its popularity led to it being a permanent feature.

Evolution into tourist attraction

As soon as the sculpture was set up at Bowling Green, it became "an instant hit." One of the city's most photographed artworks, it has become a tourist destination in the Financial District. "Its popularity is beyond doubt", a New York Times article said of the artwork. "Visitors constantly pose for pictures around it." Adrian Benepe, the New York City parks commissioner, said in 2004, "It's become one of the most visited, most photographed and perhaps most loved and recognized statues in the city of New York. I would say it's right up there with the Statue of Liberty." In 1993, Arthur J. Piccolo, chairman of the Bowling Green Association, made the same point with the same comparison. Henry J. Stern, the city parks commissioner when the statue first appeared in the Financial District, said in 1993: "People are crazy about the bull. It captured their imagination."

The statue's popularity with tourists has international appeal. One 2007 newspaper report noted a "ceaseless stream" of visitors from India, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Venezuela, and China, as well as the United States. Children enjoy climbing on the bull, which sits "famously" at street level on the cobblestones at the far northern tip of the small park. One popular tourist guidebook assumes that a visitor will want to get his or her picture taken with the statue ("after you pose with the bull ..."). A popular Bollywood movie, Kal Ho Naa Ho features the bull in a musical number, increasing its familiarity with South Asians. One visitor told a newspaper reporter it was a reason for his visit.

The enthusiastic reaction to the sculpture continues into the darker hours. "I've seen people do some crazy things to that bull", said a souvenir vendor, "At night sometimes, when people have been drinking, I’ve seen them do stuff to that bull that you couldn’t print in a newspaper."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargin...

Broadway is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in New York City, dating to the first New Amsterdam settlement, although most of it did not bear its current name until the late 19th century. The name Broadway is the English language literal translation of the Dutch name, Brede weg.

Broadway in Manhattan is known widely as the heart of the American theatre industry, and is used as a metonym for it.

The section of Broadway in Lower Manhattan from its origin at Bowling Green to City Hall Park is the historical location for the city's ticker-tape parades, and is sometimes called the "Canyon of Heroes" during such events. West of Broadway, as far as Canal Street, was the city's fashionable residential area until circa 1825; landfill has more than tripled the area, and the Hudson River shore now lies far to the west, beyond Tribeca and Battery Park City.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadwa...)


Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York, is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in the City of New York, which itself originated at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in 1624, at a point which now constitutes the present-day Financial District.

The population of the Financial District alone has grown to an estimated 61,000 residents as of 2018, up from 43,000 as of 2014, which in turn was nearly double the 23,000 recorded at the 2000 Census.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_M...

The City of New York, often called New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described uniquely as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yor...