Fearless Girl no longer staring down bull

NEW YORK — The Fearless Girl statue that represented female empowerment has been plucked from its spot opposite Wall Street’s Charging Bull and will be reinstalled in front of the New York Stock Exchange by the end of the year, officials said Wednesday.

The Boston-based financial services firm State Street Global Advisors said the sculpture of a defiant-looking young girl was moved Tuesday night. No date for its reinstallation at the stock exchange was given.

The hands-on-hips bronze statue was intended as a temporary display when State Street installed it in March 2017 to encourage corporations to put more women on their boards. City officials extended the statue’s stay after it became a favorite with tourists, who lined up for selfies with the 4-foot bronze celebrity.

One person who was not a fan of the statue was Arturo Di Modica, the artist who created Charging Bull and installed it in lower Manhattan in 1989 without permission. Di Modica complained that his 11-foot-tall bull was meant to embody “strength, power and love,” but having Fearless

Girl face off against his work had turned the bull’s message into something negative.

City officials, meanwhile, announced in April 2018 that they would move both statues about three blocks away to the stock exchange because the crowds of pedestrians clustered around the statues presented a traffic hazard.