Broad St, New York City

Original title: A Panic in the Street. Engraving based on drawing by Hughson Hawley, published in the Harper's New Monthly Magazine, February, 1890.

Illustration represents Broad Street at street level, with carriages and pedestrians. The street was transformed in the 1880s with new, taller buildings. In 1889, there were 84 chartered banks in active business in the City of New York, 45 national and 39 state institutions. The Drexel Building, on the left, home of Drexel, Morgan & Co., was completed in 1873 and demolished in 1913. The NYSE Building, on the west side Broad Street, was expanded and enlarged in 1881. The Western Union Building, erected after 1885 at 16 Broad Street (left) was bought by the NYSE in 1898. The tower of the Produce Exchange, is represented in the distance. The institution, founded in 1861, opened its headquarters at Bowling Green, in 1884.

According to this Harper's Magazine: «The number of private bankers, not including brokers, in the United States, given in the Bankers' Almanac and Register for 1884, was 3387; for the year 1888 it was 4210. (...) Of the fifty private bankers doing business under corporate titles in this State none are located in the city of New York. There is a multitude of private bankers, in number above two hundred, of whom such houses as those of Brown, Brothers, and Co., Drexel, Morgan, and Co., Morton, Bliss, and Co., Kidder, Peabody, and Co., August Belmont and Co., are of standing and influence universally acknowledged. But not being incorporated, they do not come under official supervision.»