Wall Street is a short, narrow street in lower Manhattan that extends from Broadway to the East River; symbolically, the term Wall Street stands for the U.S. financial world because of many of the nation's stock-brokerage companies, banks, and commodity exchanges are located either on the street or in the immediate neighborhood. The name is taken from an old wall built in 1653 by Peter Stuyvesant across lower Manhattan Island, at what was then the northernmost boundary of the city, to protect the Dutch colonists. Wall Street landmarks include Trinity Church (1846), the New York Stock Exchange Building, the House of Morgan, and the old U.S. Sub-Treasury Building, on the site of which George Washington was inaugurated (1789) as first president of the United States. Wall Street has become increasingly synonymous with U.S. capitalism, and organizations located on or near it influence and control innumerable enterprises throughout the United States and abroad. Wall Street is a short, narrow street in lower Manhattan that extends from Broadway to the East River; symbolically, the term Wall Street stands for the U.S. financial world because of many of the nation's stock-brokerage companies, banks, and commodity exchanges are located either on the street or in the immediate neighborhood. The name is taken from an old wall built in 1653 by Peter Stuyvesant across lower Manhattan Island, at what was then the northernmost boundary of the city, to protect the Dutch colonists. Wall Street landmarks include Trinity Church (1846), the New York Stock Exchange Building, the House of Morgan, and the old U.S. Sub-Treasury Building, on the site of which George Washington was inaugurated (1789) as first president of the United States. Wall Street has become increasingly synonymous with U.S. capitalism, and organizations located on or near it influence and control innumerable enterprises throughout the United States and abroad.