Walking Wall Streets

Where Craig Dietrich visits Wall Streets in towns and cities across America. So far: Los Angeles, New York, Everett, Carson, Colfax, Saint Paul, Las Vegas, East Rutherford, Philadelphia, La Jolla, La Habra, Akron

Wall Street, Los Angeles

Los Angeles' Wall Street is just like its Main Street (in fact, Main Street runs parallel a block away). Here focus is on local economies that are characteristically distinct from one city block to the next.

Wall Street near E 102nd St, Los Angeles

Wall Street at E Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Los Angeles, Los Angeles

Main Street at E 50th St (one block west of Wall Street), Los Angeles

Sanchez's on Wall Street at E 41st Pl, Los Angeles

Maple-Pico Center (one block west of Wall Street), Los Angeles

Looking northwest on Wall Street at E Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles

Wall Street, New York

These pictures were taken just after the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park. As you can see, barricades dominate. Though these same pedestrian blockades often exist even now around the "critical" center of American banking.

Side street baracade just off of Wall Street, New York City

Wall Street, Everett

Everett's Wall Street starts among downtown bank and government buildings and ends down at the docks, site of working class race riots in 1907. Here, white workers violently removed East Indian immigrants from lumber mills where they shared employment. Riots were prevalent up and down the Washington coast during this time.

Looking south at the U.S. Post Office and Customshouse Building, corner of Wall Street and Colby Street, Everett, Washington

Looking west towards the docks and Monte Cristo Hotel along Wall Street at Colby Street, Everett, Washington

Wall Street, Carson

Carson, California's Wall Street is part of a residential neighborhood in visible range of the Dignity Health Sports Park, home to soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy. The area, which also contains Cal State University Dominquez Hills, was one of the sites considered for the new LA-area football stadium (which ended up going to Inglewood).

Looking east along E 182nd St from Wall St at StubHub Center (soccer) and Cal State Dominguez Hills, Carson, California

Looking south along Wall St, Carson, California

Carson Cicruit Route E (Del Amo) bus stop at Wall St and 184th St, Carson, California

Wall Street, Colfax

Back in Washington State, in the other side of the state known as the Palouse, there are a few counties named after American homesteaders. One is Whitman County, named after a missionary, who came across the Oregon trail then set up his settlement inside an existing Native Cayuse settlement. Hundreds of Cayuse subsequently died of measles. The tribe then turned around and killed the Whitman family whom they held responsible for the epidemic. None of the history of Marcus Whitmen, the Cayuse tribe, or the measles epidemic is represented along the Wall Street in Colfax, seat of Whitman County. However, just a few blocks south sits another disasterous blend of American-Native cultures: The Codger Pole, a totem pole featuring the participants in a 1988 football game.

Wall Street, Saint Paul

Saint Paul, Minnesota's Wall Street is more conventional, existing in its busy downtown along the Mississippi River. While Wall Street here contains a number of live-work lofts and other redeveloped old warehouses, the bank buildings that originated in the early 1900s exist a couple blocks to the West, on Jackson Street. Why the developers chose Jackson over Wall is still a mystery (despite looking up the streets at the Minnesota Historical Society's library), but now there is little room for more banks on the latter; Wall Street is chopped off at its northern end by the I-94 freeway.

North end of Wall Street in Saint Paul, which is a turnabout and intersection between Wall Street and E 8th Street.

Wall Street near 6th Street, looking south along Wall Street toward Union Depot, in Saint Paul.

South end of Wall Street in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Looking south along Wall Street towards Union Depot at the end.

443 Wall Street storefront, near 7th Street, Saint Paul.

Wall Street, Las Vegas

Wall Street in Las Vegas is an outlyer—it exists out on its own beyond the Strip, near a freeway overpass and surrounded by more heavily trafficked roads, and contains no permanent buildings. Oddly, when one approaches Wall Street from the I-15 South off-ramp there is a sign making sure to point road traffic in its direction. However, neither of the other roads mentioned on the sign as accessible via Wall Street, Western and Frontage, are actually accessible in such a way.

'Use Wall St.' sign along S Martin L King Blvd in northern Las Vegas.

Wall Street, now a construction zone, with the Berverly Green neighborhood of Las Vegas and the Stratosphere in the background.

Wall Street, now a construction zone, near W Charleston Blvd in northern Las Vegas.

Wall Street, East Rutherford

Not far from New York City, in New Jersey, is East Rutherford, a mostly quiet suburban community of single-family homes, parks, and small businesses. There isn't an indication as to why the street is named Wall. There isn't, for example, a corresponding Main Street in this neighborhood, nor a wall or barrier.

Chestnut Street, Philadelphia

As detailed by Robert E. Wright in his book The First Wall Street: Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, and the Birth of American Finance, Chestnut Street in Philadelphia was America's first financial center, before the financial industry turned to New York and Wall Street. On Chestnut Street, there are bank buildings that range in date from 1700s to present day as one walks West from the waterfront.

Wall Street, La Jolla

More soon....

Wall Street, La Habra

More soon....

Wall Street, Akron

More soon....

Craig Dietrich, craigdietrich at gmail. View the full set of images on Flickr.