On December 16, 1989 Wall Street woke up to find a charging bull on its doorstep. Artist Arturo Di Modica installed it in front of the New York Stock Exchange overnight, declaring it a symbol of the ”strength and power of the American people”.
Di Modica spent $360,000 to create, cast, and install the sculpture. It was meant to inspire Americans following the 1987 stock market crash. The sculpture was the artist’s idea, not the city’s. In an act of “guerrilla art”, Di Modica and Bedi Makky Art Foundry trucked the statue to Manhattan and installed it beneath a 60-foot Christmas tree in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
The Police Department decided the work had no permit and was obstructing traffic so they hired a trucking company and had the bull carted away to a Queens warehouse where it was held until public outcry forced the city to permanently return the Bull to Wall Street. It remains there today.
Read more: NY Times, SoHo Gift to Wall St.: A 3 1/2-Ton Bronze Bull, December 16, 1989
Image: Bryan (CC BY-SA 2.0)
