One of the most popular New York City tourist destinations, the Fearless Girl statue, is now set to move from its original spot in Lower Manhattan. The news was first reported by the New York Daily News on Thursday, which said that the statue's commissioners, City Hall and State Street Global Advisors, are switching up its location. But fans of the 4-foot-tall bronze sculpture need not worry, because the Fearless Girl statue location won't be too far away from its original spot near Wall Street.
At the moment, the statue faces the historical, 11-foot-tall "Charging Bull" in the Financial District. Its new home is just three blocks away: The commissioners behind the statue told the New York Daily News that Fearless Girl's future home is right in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
Selecting the New York Stock Exchange as the new location for Fearless Girl was deliberate, according to Cyrus Taraporevala, who is the CEO of State Street Global Advisors. "Our goal is to promote the power of having women in leadership, and placing her right next to the New York Stock Exchange is really the perfect metaphor," Taraporevala told the newspaper.
Fearless Girl has stood in front of the Charging Bull — which, in case you ever wondered, weighs a massive 7,100 pounds and is 16 feet long — for a little more than a year.
Sculpted by the artist Kristen Visbal, Fearless Girl was originally placed in front of the Charging Bull in March 2017. Lynn Blake, vice president of State Street Global Advisors, told New York Daily News that the attention the little sculpture received almost instantly was intense. "It was, to be honest, really overwhelming — but overwhelming in an inspiring way," Blake said.
Like Taraporevala, Blake also said that the first home for Fearless Girl was chosen with "specific" purpose. "The placement was really for a very specific reason and a call to action, to holding stocks in our portfolios to increasing gender diversity — because of all the research that's been done by countless organizations that shows greater gender diversity leads to better results," Blake noted.
Over the year, however, commissioners noted that the statue's temporary home was one that eventually came with safety issues. According to its commissioner and the City Hall, the current location for the Fearless Girl had become a safety hazard over time. New York Daily News reported that the city noted that given its popularity, the Fearless Girl began attracting a large number number of visitors in the Bowling Green area and that led to congestion.
New York Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen said that new location for the Fearless Girl statue would cover two cogent notes. For starters, the New York Stock Exchange spot for the statue will be more pedestrian-friendly and less likely to lead to crowdedness. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly for Fearless Girl fans, the statue's symbolic status — essentially about women seeking more employment opportunities and representation in corporate boards — will remain.
"What could be more important than the sort of epicenter of corporate power?" Glen told the New York Daily News. "And clearly, the Fearless Girl was built to talk about that."
That said, Fearless Girl has her critics, too. Some say that the statue embodies a brand of corporate feminism that ultimately fails women. The sculptor behind the Charging Bull, too, wasn't exactly a fan of the bronze sculpture. But Fearless Girl's commissioners seem to welcome the criticism. As Taraporevala said, "If it even gets some people thinking about stuff, and they decide they don't like it, we're still getting people to think about the issue."
