LIU Post gets NYSE memorabilia from Bates family

Amelia Camurati
LIU Post alumnus Christopher Bates, left, went back to school after a successful career on Wall Street to study criminal justice with Department of Criminal Justice chairman Harvey Kushner. (Photo by Amelia Camurati)

A small piece of New York Stock Exchange history now resides at the Long Island University Post campus’ own trading floor.

Originally installed in 1928, the New York Stock Exchange’s last sale indicators sat above the brokers heads and were changed manually thousands of times per day. (Photo courtesy LIU Post)

Former stockbroker and LIU Post alumnus Christopher Bates donated a trio of personal items from his family’s three generations on Wall Street, including an antique wooden last sale indicator used for more than 50 years.

Installed shortly before the stock market crash of 1929, the last sale indicators remained in service for 56 years until they were replaced by televisions and other digital technology.

“The game has moved up from 1928, ’29 when my grandfather George Robb was there to when I retired and rang the closing bell in 2004, and it’s ever-changing now,” Bates said. “You had the human element, which I think is the most important part of the market and knowing people you’re trading with and you trust.”

Christopher Bates holds a photo of his grandfather, George Robb, during his long career at the New York Stock Exchange. (Photo courtesy LIU Post)

Bates also donated a photo of Robb on the NYSE trading floor. After Robb was murdered in 1980, Bates took over his seat on the stock exchange floor in 1981.

The third donated item is a framed piece of the New York Stock Exchange’s constitution, which has been signed by every stock broker to trade in the market since 1869 when the exchange merged with the Open Board of Stock Brokers.

“I cannot even begin to tell you the great people who are in this book because the book is literally about seven inches thick, about two and a half feet wide by three feet long,” Bates said.

After ringing the closing bell in honor of his retirement in 2004, Bates went back to school at LIU Post to get his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

From left, Christopher Bates shows LIU Post students Michael Nicosia of Hicksville and Angelina Litterello of Centereach how the last sales indicator works. (Photo by Amelia Camurati)

“You’re probably saying, ‘Here’s a guy in finance for all these years, now criminal justice. I don’t really get it,'” Bates said. “I really didn’t get it either, but then we had a guy named Bernie Madoff, and it put them together.”

Harvey Kushner, chairman of the department of criminal justice, said he will always cherish the relationship he has with his former student and summer intern Bates.

“Every once in a while, you meet a student that teaches you something, not only about learning what we’re all about here, but about life and about who that person is as an individual. Someone to admire,” Kushner said. “This is what life is about, not just to make money, not just to make a name for yourself. Brains, he has, but he has a heart and is a genuinely nice individual.”

Robert Valli, dean of the School of Business, thanked Bates for entrusting his family heirlooms to the school. They will be on display in the school’s trading floor, outfitted with a number of televisions and Bloomberg machines to trade in real money, Valli said.

“We forget about history and how important it is,” Valli said. “I think there’s a lot to history, and to have a symbol of history in this room I think speaks volumes to what we are as an institution here at LIU. That is an institution that is engaged in the industry in a meaningful way.”

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