The rise of Wall Street in the 1980s: boom and bust

The rise of Wall Street in the 1980s was part of the growth of New York's financial industry, which became centered on Wall Street as businesses increasingly predominated there; during the 20th century, several early skyscrapers were built on the street, including 40 Wall Street, once the world's tallest building.

2 articles, 1 book · about 57 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   Stock Market Crash of 1987 · federalreservehistory.org · 9 min read

   The 1987 stock market crash marked the sharpest market downturn in the United States since the Great Depression: the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped 22.6 percent in a single trading session, the largest one-day stock market decline in history. The crash showed how intertwined and technologically interconnected financial markets worldwide had become.

2. Read
   

   the rise of wall street in the 1980s · Wikipedia · 48 min read

   Wall Street firms' expansion westward into New Jersey in the 1980s extended their direct economic impacts beyond New York City. In 2009, Wall Street employment wages in the state totaled almost $18.5 billion, and the industry contributed $39.4 billion or 8.4 percent to the New Jersey's gross domestic product. The 1987 Oliver Stone film Wall Street created Gordon Gekko, who used the phrase "greed is good," which caught on in cultural parlance. In 2009, Stone said the film unexpectedly led many young people to choose Wall Street careers, and Gekko is reportedly based on multiple real-life individuals on Wall Street.

3. Book
   

   Bonfire of the Vanities · Bookshop.org

   The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe is a 1987 satirical novel about ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed in 1980s New York City, centered on a WASP bond trader, an assistant district attorney, and a journalist.

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