If you are coming down south on Broadway the bronze statue indeed looks like a nasty bull ready to trample you to the ground and gore the life out of you. It stands more than 3 meters tall, stretches almost 5 meters long and weighs 3 tonnes. Although its location is perfect for appreciating its aggressive qualities, which represent the prevailing attitude of the Wall Street district, the statue was not positioned there in the very beginning.
Italian-American sculptor Arturo Di Modica sculpted the beast in 1989, using $360,000 of his own money, and installed it right in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Broad Street. The New York City police immediately removed it and took it to a warehouse. However, two weeks later public demand forced the authorities to return the statue to the streets and it was placed in its present location. Di Modica still owns the work and has loaned it to the city for an unknown period, something that most people are not aware of, thinking that the charging bull belongs to the city. In 2004 Di Modica put the sculpture on sale on the condition that whoever buys it does not move it from its current site. In 2010 Di Modica made a replica for Shanghai, China, and in 2012 a third version for Amsterdam.
By now the charging bull of New York has become one of the city's most beloved landmarks. No tourist leaves the city without having his photo taken in front of the bronze creature and, for the extremely superstitious, a gentle rub of its testicles for good luck. In 2011 the bull became an overnight celebrity when it was used for the Occupy Wall Street poster, in which a delicate ballerina balances herself on the neck of the animal. Although the protest movement never actually occupied Wall Street itself, only the nearby Zuccotti Park, the campaigners chose the charging bull statue as the image that is best associated with the ruthlessness of American's corporate and financial executives.