Wall Street Journal finds Wall Street, Asheville

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Wall Street Journal story here:

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Bart Boyer’s financial-planning firm, located at 6 Wall St. here, is a few doors from a custom sandal shop, bead store, New Age church and three restaurants that buy ingredients from local farms.

It is a long way from the Wall Street that has become synonymous to many Americans with reckless greed and pushing the economy off a cliff.

“They’ve caused us a lot of distress, ruined a lot of lives,” says Mr. Boyer, chairman and chief executive of Parsec Financial Management Inc. In the first two months of 2009, the firm’s revenue fell 22% from a year earlier.

Anger over runaway trading, financial engineering and compensation by financial companies has a strong resonance along at least 955 country roads, suburban streets and downtown blocks named Wall Street or something close to that. From Abilene, Texas, to south Los Angeles to Zeeland, Mich., these residents and business are wrestling both with the recession and the ignominy of a truly fallen address. (Never mind that most Wall Street financial firms aren’t literally located on Wall Street, nor is The Wall Street Journal.)

“My father’s always joked: ‘My daughter works on Wall Street,'” says Robin Campbell, owner of Dolce Vita, an eclectic boutique halfway on Asheville’s Wall Street that is stocked with handbags, earrings and wine. “Now he doesn’t joke about that.”

On Wall Streets throughout the country, the dominant view is that their New York cousins deserve their ruined reputation.