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Joie de Vivre (English: Joy of Life) is an outdoor sculpture by Mark di Suvero, located at Zuccotti Park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The 70-foot sculpture, composed of "open-ended tetrahedrons", was installed by the intersection of Broadway and Cedar Street in June 2006 and was previously located at the Holland Tunnel rotary (also named St. John's Park). In October 2011, during Occupy Wall Street, a man climbed Joie de Vivre, where he remained for several hours until he was escorted down by police.
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20 m
City Hotel (Manhattan)
The City Hotel (1794–1849) stood at 123 Broadway, occupying the whole block bounded by Cedar, Temple, and Thames Streets, in today's Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. It was the first functioning hotel in the United States. Until the early 1840s it was the city's principal site for prestigious social functions and concerts. Designed by John McComb Jr., it offered not only luxurious accommodations, but also such amenities as shops, a barroom, and a coffeehouse, as well as public dining and dancing. Its five stories and 137 rooms replaced the former home of Stephen Delancey, built around 1700, which had become an inn.
An 1825 guide-book, first published in 1817, calls it "an immense building, 5 stories in height, [which] contains 78 rooms of various dimensions, fitted up and furnished in a tasteful, elegant and convenient manner … the proprietor of this Hotel makes it his constant study to provide the best of every thing to his visitors." An 1828 expanded edition states:
City Hotel, [operated] by Chester Jennings, is the chief place of resort, and … the loftiest edifice of that kind in the city, containing more than one hundred large and small parlours and lodging-rooms, besides the City Assembly Room, chiefly used for Concerts and Balls. The rooms appropriated for private families, parlours, and dining rooms are superbly fitted up, and constantly occupied by respectable strangers. Extensive additions have recently been made to this establishment. The principal Book stores and Libraries are in the vicinity. Prices, over two days, $1.50 per day, $10 per week, $416 per year—Board only, $5.50 per week, dinner only, $3.50 per week.
Upon its closing on April 30, 1849, the New York Herald wrote: "In times gone by, it was the first hotel of the country, and the great men of the country always patronized it … ". It was once owned by Ezra Weeks. In 1828 John Jacob Astor bought it. He gave it to a granddaughter, Sara Langdon, who married Francis Robert Boreen in 1834, as a dowry. In 1849–50 she replaced it with a block of stores called the Boreel Building, and in 1878–79 replaced that with an office building, also called the Boreel Building.
26 m
Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a left-wing populist and progressive movement against economic inequality, capitalism, corporate greed, big finance, and the influence of money in politics. It began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Financial District, and lasted for fifty-nine days—from September 17 to November 15, 2011.
The motivations for Occupy Wall Street largely resulted from public distrust in the private sector during the aftermath of the Great Recession in the United States. There were many particular points of interest leading up to the Occupy movement that angered populist and left-wing groups. For instance, the 2008 bank bailouts under the George W. Bush administration utilized congressionally appropriated taxpayer funds to create the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which purchased toxic assets from failing banks and financial institutions. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC in January 2010 allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts on independent political expenditures without government regulation. This angered many populist and left-wing groups that viewed the ruling as a way for moneyed interests to corrupt public institutions and legislative bodies, such as the United States Congress.
The protests gave rise to the wider Occupy movement in the United States and other Western countries. The Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters initiated the call for a protest. The main issues raised by Occupy Wall Street were social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. The OWS slogan, "We are the 99%", refers to income and wealth inequality in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. To achieve their goals, protesters acted on consensus-based decisions made in general assemblies which emphasized redress through direct action over the petitioning to authorities.
The protesters were forced out of Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011. Protesters then turned their focus to occupying banks, corporate headquarters, board meetings, foreclosed homes, college and university campuses, and social media.
33 m
Columbian Academy of Painting
Columbian Academy of Painting was one of the earliest art schools in the United States. It was founded by brothers Archibald and Alexander Robertson in 1792. The school was located in New York at 79 Liberty Street.
It was one of the country's first art schools. Their students included John Vanderlyn, Francis Alexander, and, rare for the time, woman miniaturist Ann Hall. The brothers taught art to amateur and professional students with a wide variety of mediums and subjects. Their methods were based upon those taught in European and British art schools at that time. The Columbian Academy of Art was renamed the Academy of Painting, which continued to be managed by Archibald. Alexander opened his own art school in 1802.
The school operated for 30 years.
39 m
Zuccotti Park
Zuccotti Park (formerly Liberty Plaza Park) is a 33,000-square-foot (3,100 m2) publicly accessible park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is located in a privately owned public space (POPS) controlled by Brookfield Properties and Goldman Sachs. Zuccotti Park is bounded by Broadway to the east, Liberty Street to the north, Trinity Place to the west, and Cedar Street to the south.
The park was created in 1968 by Pittsburgh-based United States Steel, after the property owners negotiated its creation with city officials. It was named Liberty Plaza Park because it was situated one block south of One Liberty Plaza. The park's northwest corner is across the street from Four World Trade Center. It has been popular with local tourists and financial workers.
The park was heavily damaged in the September 11 attacks and subsequent recovery efforts of 2001. The plaza was later used as the site of several events commemorating the anniversary of the attacks. After renovations in 2006, the park was renamed by its current owners, Brookfield Properties, after company chairman John Zuccotti. Starting in September 2011, the plaza became the site of the Occupy Wall Street protest camp, during which activists occupied the plaza and used it as a staging ground for their protests throughout the Financial District; this was the first protest of what became the global Occupy movement.