 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Bull!
Frozen in mid-lunge, the massive, larger-than-life bull that dominates the intersection of Broadway and Whitehall Street doesn’t look like it wants to make friends or entertain visitors. No matter. Tourists are drawn to the 7,000-pound bronze statue, Charging Bull, by the thousands each day, jostling for a pose alongside its prodigious head and other anatomical features. Behind their cameras, snapshooters bark instructions in Farsi, French, Hindi and Hungarian. An elderly Indian couples strike a somber pose reminiscent of American Gothic. Exuberant British teens plant extravagant kisses on the bull’s cheeks. “Kiss it like you mean it!” their friends scream. Chinese businessmen glance back with irritation at the Venezuelan boy who has clambered up the animal’s horns, spoiling their shot. They come to the bull for different reasons. Orrin Klopper, from South Africa, said he wanted to see the sculpture because it is a shrine to American capitalism. “It symbolizes the growing market,” Klopper said.“That’s why people come to see it from all over the world—capitalism is everywhere now.” Others visit the bull simply because it has become one of the most iconic images of New York, nearly on a par with the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge. Murtaza Sutarwalla brought relatives visiting from India to see the bull because it is featured in a scene in a popular Bollywood movie called “Kal Ho Naa Ho.” “In the movie, the film star Shah Rukh Khan is trying to act like he owns Wall Street,” Sutarwalla explained. “And there’s a whole musical number at the bull. I was humming the song as we walked over here.” The bull’s path to this international celebrity had unceremonial beginnings. When Sicilian-born New York artist Arturo Di Modica dropped off the uncommissioned Charging Bull as a surprise gift in front of the New York Stock Exchange in 1989, police promptly towed the bronze behemoth to a municipal impound lot like an illegally parked car. Under public pressure to bring the bull back, city officials eventually deposited it at the north end of Bowling Green Park. While more tourists choose to have their pictures taken next to the bull’s powerful head, almost as many gravitate to its southern end, where the bull is rendered in full anatomical detail, and where a peculiar ritual has evolved. After many years, the bronze of the bull’s prodigious scrotum has been worn to a burnished gold color by the hands of pilgrims from many nations. “It’s for good luck,” shrugged Mississippian Kyle Lynn, rising from a crouch beneath the shining orbs. “Also, there’s a kind of primal response when you see something like that. You just have to engage it.” “I’ve seen people do some crazy things to that bull,” souvenir vendor David Jefferson said, shaking his head. “At night sometimes, when people have been drinking, I’ve seen them do stuff to that bull that you couldn’t print in a newspaper.”
[Home][Back][Search] [Advertise][Contact] The Tribeca Trib · 401 Broadway, 5th Floor · New York, NY · 10013 · 212.219.9709 |
