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Very close to the New York Stock Exchange is the famous bull created by Arturo di Modica, known as the Charging Bull, the Wall Street Bull or the Bowling Green Bull.
This huge bronze sculpture weighing more than 3 tons refers to a symbol that accompanies most stock exchanges in the world: the struggle between bulls and bears. The bull represents the bullish market, as its lowered head ready to charge lifts its investments. However, the bear, which operates downward, refers to certain US hunters who sold the bear's skin before it was caught. Thus, the struggle between the bull, the buyer, and the bear, the seller, determines the rise or fall in prices. It is then easy to understand that the sculpture shows the optimism and prosperity that the financial brokers of Manhattan need before facing their hard working day. For tourists, however, it is one of the icons of the city near which to pose for pictures.
The author of the Bowling Green Bull is the Italian-American artist born in Sicily in the mid-20th century. Arturo di Modica, known worldwide for this tremendous sculpture installed without permission in front of the Stock Exchange in December 1989 as a Christmas gift to the city of New York. This was an act known as "guerrilla art".
The police eventually seized the sculpture, but neighbours claimed it as part of the city and finally the Parks Department of the City of New York decided to install the work in its present location, two blocks down from the Stock Exchange, in the Bowling Green.
As a curiosity, look at the brightest and worn area of sculpture and you will be able to guess what those visiting the sculpture rub to ask for prosperity and good luck. Are you up for it?
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