On Friday, July 24, the Broad Street side in front of the New York Stock Exchange will host the first neighborhood party dedicated to the Fearless Girl, the bronze statue of the girl with her hands on her hips become one of the most famous pictures of the Financial District. The Fearless Girl Summer Block Party will be held from 14 to 16, between Wall Street and Exchange Place, and will be free and open to children.
The program includes a DJ set of DJ Avera, the distribution of gadgets up to exhausting stocks, cold desserts and an installation in augmented reality with which to make photographs along with the statue. During the event there should also be a preview of “what will come” for the Fearless Girl: the announcement so far does not explain, however, whether it concerns a new initiative, the tenth anniversary of 2027 or the placement of the work.
Some presentations of the event talk about the closure of Broad Street to traffic, but that stretch is already normally inaccessible to cars. It is part of the security zone around the New York Stock Exchange and in the documents of the municipality is indicated as a road without vehicular traffic, with the only guaranteed passage to the emergency means. For two hours the space normally occupied by tourists, workers and photographers will then be used for the stands and music of the party.
Fearless Girl was installed on March 7, 2017, on the eve of International Women’s Day. It was commissioned by the State Street financial company and realized by sculptor Kristen Visbal as part of a campaign on the presence of women in the boards of directors. At about 127 centimeters, he was initially in Bowling Green, in front of Charging Bull: his posture seemed to transform the two works into a unique scene, with the child facing the bull.
That arrangement contributed a lot to the popularity of the statue, but it was contested by Arturo Di Modica, the author of Charging Bull, according to which the new work altered the meaning of his. In November 2018, Fearless Girl was removed from Bowling Green and the following month it was placed in the current position, facing the front of the Stock Exchange. State Street and Visbal have also discussed for years the possibility of producing and selling other copies of the statue; the cause ended with an agreement in 2024, whose terms were not made public.
In the meantime the relationship between the message of the work and the society that commissioned it has changed. In 2025 State Street has eliminated from its guidelines some numerical goals on the presence of women and minorities in the boards of directors of the participating companies. Until the previous year he asked that in the councils of the main companies listed at least 30 percent of the members were made up of women; the new policy leaves the composition to the committees selecting candidates.
Also the permanence of the statue in front of the Stock Exchange has been authorized through temporary permits. In June 2023 the Public Design Commission sent the last request for extension, asking the Department of Transport for a shorter proposal and a new comparison with Visbal. It has not been said if the anticipation planned during the festival will concern this theme. To participate you do not need to book; those who want to receive one of the gadgets will have to arrive near the beginning, because they will be distributed only until exhaustion.
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