Last Friday the Dow Jones hit its record high reaching 50,830 points

Dow Jones Industrial Average , The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones, or simply the Dow, is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity indexes.

Standard & Poor's founded - 1860 - Henry Poor's collection of financial data for his History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States of America,led to the formation of a company to that publish information on stocks and bonds which grows into Standard & Poor's.

American Stock Exchange - 1921 - This building was originally called the New York Curb Exchange because it was built to house the traders who had worked on the sidewalk - the curb - in front of the New York Stock Exchange. The present building is a 14-story Art Deco enlargement of an early 1920's building.

New York Stock Exchange - 1790 - Across from the Meal Market, where enslaved workers could be hired or bought, was the Tontine Coffee House, home of the New York Stock Exchange. Powerbrokers of the day met in a room there to buy, sell, and trade. As soon as a ship’s captain reached the harbor, this is where he came to register his cargo. The goods coming into New York in the 1790s included coffee, tea, sugar and molasses, fine furniture, cloth, cotton, and enslaved men, women, and children.The companies that insured, outfitted, and owned the boats used to carry Africans from their homelands to enslavement often traded on the stock market. The slave trade was big business and New Yorkers made huge profits from it long after slavery was made illegal in the state. The first and last New York slave trader to be executed was caught in April 1861, as the first shots of the Civil War were fired.The New York Stock Exchange has roots that go back to a spring day in 1792, when a group of 24 men met outside 68 Wall Street in the shade of a huge sycamore tree that locals called a buttonwood. They set down the rules they would trade by and called it the Buttonwood Agreement. Later that year, trading moved into a room on the second floor of the Tontine Coffee House, where it remained until 1817.

1st electronic stock market - 1971 - NASDAQ Opens becoming the world's first electronic stock market

Invention of the Universal Stock Ticker - 1867 - Edward Callahan invents a telegraphic device showing stock prices with symbols based on Morse Code for the Gold and Stock Telegraph Co, inventing the Stock Ticker.

Samuel Ratensky Memorial Lecture: Majora Carter - New York - 10:00 PM, Tuesday, 26th May 2026 - The annual Samuel Ratensky Memorial Lecture was initiated by the AIANY Housing Committee in honor of Samuel Ratensky (1910–1972), an architect and NYC housing official who was responsible for major housing initiatives in the city from 1946 to 1972, and who served as a mentor to the many architects who worked in his programs. The lecture series honors individuals who, like Ratensky, have made significant lifetime contributions to the advancement of housing and community design. This year's lecture honors MacArthur Fellow Majora Carter who will present "Transit, Talent, and Tomorrow: A Bronx Blueprint for Urban Revitalization." Majora Carter brings her international leadership in urban revitalization strategy back to The Bronx in an inspiring talk about leveraging Transit Oriented Development, Talent-Retention, and pushing zoning and building codes for climate-adaptation and greater buildable square footage in an era of housing shortfalls. She pioneered green collar job training & placement systems, a green roof property tax abatement still in effect after 20 years, and a Rudy Bruner award winning park where there were once illegal garbage dumps. She went on to create StartUp Box, a 3rd space tech-inclusion social enterprise, and later opened The Boogie Down Grind cafe-bar named Best in the City by TimeOutNY. She is currently building on her relationship with Amtrak to combine Right of Way property with adjacent smaller lots that open the door for greater possibilities where others see none. Speaker:Majora Carter, Real Estate Developer, Consultant, Author

Lunch on a Beam: The Making of an American Photograph - New York - 10:00 PM, Tuesday, 26th May 2026 - This is a hybrid program, in person in the gallery and online.   The famous publicity photograph "Lunch on a Beam," also known as "Lunch Atop a Skyscraper," pictures eleven ironworkers – mid-air on an I-beam bench – during the construction of Rockefeller Center’s RCA Building in 1932. Despite the image’s renown, little factual information or serious history has been available about it. Now, in a new book, Lunch on a Beam (April 2026), Christine Roussel – long-time archivist at Rockefeller Center and author of the definitive books The Art of Rockefeller Center and The Guide to the Art of Rockefeller Center – unpacks the story behind one of America’s most iconic photographs. Though often seen as a spontaneous snapshot of daring laborers, the image was staged as a publicity tool during the Great Depression. Roussel blends art, architectural, and social history to illuminate the photographers, publicists, financiers, and immigrant and Indigenous workers behind the picture—revealing how the photograph not only honored working men but also helped promote John D. Rockefeller, Jr.’s ambitious vision and shape the mythology of New York City. At this event, Christine will be in conversation with William Bartlett, former head of executive communications at NBC Universal and the author of NBC and 30 Rock: A View from Inside.