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| [This series was shot in the Wall Street Bull area] |
Charging Bull, which is sometimes
referred to as the Wall Street Bull or the Bowling Green Bull,
is a 3,200-kilogram (7,100 lb) bronze sculpture by Arturo Di
Modica that stands in Bowling Green Park near Wall Street in Manhattan, New York City.
Standing 11 feet (3.4 m) tall and measuring 16 feet (4.9 m)
long, the oversize sculpture depicts a bull, the symbol of aggressive
financial optimism and prosperity, leaning back on its haunches and
with its head lowered as if ready to charge. The sculpture is both a popular
tourist destination which draws thousands of people a day, as well as "one
of the most iconic images of New York" and a "Wall Street
icon" symbolizing "Wall Street" and the Financial District.
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 a very 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 Indians. One visitor told a
newspaper reporter it was a reason for his visit.
In addition to having their pictures
taken at the front end of the bull, many tourists pose at the back of the bull,
near the large testicles "for snapshots under an unmistakable symbol of
its virility." According to a Washington
Post article in 2002, "People on The Street say you've got
to rub the nose, horns and testicles of
the bull for good luck, tour guide Wayne McLeod would tell the group on the
Baltimore bus, who would giddily oblige." According to a
2004 New York Times article, "Passers-by have rubbed — to a
bright gleam — its nose, horns and a part of its anatomy that, as Mr. Benepe
put it gingerly, 'separates the bull from the steer.'"
A poster showing a ballerina on the
Charging Bull to promote the Occupy Wall Street movement.
A 2007 newspaper account agreed that
a "peculiar ritual" of handling the "shining orbs" of the
statue's scrotum seems to have developed into a tradition. One visitor, from
Mississippi, told the Tribeca Trib she did it "for good
luck", and because "there’s a kind of primal response when you see
something like that. You just have to engage it." 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."
Following the 2011
Occupy Wall Street protests, the sculpture
was placed under police guard and is generally off-limits to tourists. [Wiki]
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