Wall Street Bull: Good Luck Burnishing
New York, New York
The 13-foot-long, 3.5-ton bronze statue, "Charging Bull," was Italian sculptor Arturo Di Modica's statement about the stock market crash of October 1987 (which has since been largely forgotten). Without permission, he placed the bull in front of the Stock Exchange on the night of December 15, 1989 (It was later moved a few blocks southwest to its current spot).
Di Modica, who died in 2021, made a good living selling reduced-size copies of the statue to the superrich for $650,000 apiece.
Stockbrokers would walk past the bull every day, and began what has now become a tradition for visitors: rubbing the bull's balls for luck. The testicles are now the most brilliantly burnished part of the bull, and there's usually a line of tourists waiting for their chance to rub away while grinning for a smartphone camera.
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