Fearless Girl Statue

For 28 years, a bronze bull at the base of Broadway was the star of Wall Street—the statue everyone came to see and snap photos with. But in March 2017, the neighborhood got a new heroine, a small but fierce girl defiantly staring down the bull. An overnight sensation, she stayed there until 2018, when she was relocated. She now stands on Broad Street and stares down the building that houses the New York Stock Exchange, a short walk from her original location.

The Fearless Girl, a bronze statue created by Kristen Visbal, was installed for International Women’s Day, standing right opposite the iconic Charging Bull statue in the Bowling Green park in downtown Manhattan. At just 4 feet and 250 pounds, she’s no competition in terms of size, but her fierce hands-on-hips stance and upturned face show that she was more than a match for him.

Commissioned by a financial services firm to advocate gender diversity on corporate boards, the statue in the city's Financial District became a runaway hit, with thousands flocking to the site to get a photo with the heroine of the hour, and mimicking her pose. An online petition to make the statue a permanent fixture was started and received over 28,000 signatures by the following week.