A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from February 06, 2014
Big Swinging Dick (BSD)

Entry in progress—B.P.
 
Google Books
Liar’s Poker
By Michael Lewis
New York,NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
1989
Pg. 57:
Nothing in the jungle got in the way of a Big Swinging Dick.
 
That was the prize we coveted. Perhaps the phrase didn’t stick in everyone’s mind the way it did in mine; the name was less important than the ambition, which was common to us all.
   
Urban Dictionary
big swinging dick
1. the financial industry’s term for a rainmaker; a Wall Street executive who brings in enormous amounts of money for the firm, possibly because he has just screwed a customer.
An expression made famous by Michael Lewis in Liar’s Poker, published in 1989.
2. a mover and shaker in any organization
Calling some one a dick is an insult.
Calling some one a big dick is a bigger insult.
Calling some one a big swinging dick is a term of respect.
(...)
by mandingoe October 05, 2004
 
Slate
SEPT. 25 2008 6:18 PM
The End of the BSD
A Wall Street icon falls.

By Daniel Gross
In New York, happiest among the financial alpha males is the big swinging dick. The term entered the lingua franca via Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker. (Relevant quote: “If he could make millions of dollars come out of those phones, he became that most revered of all species: a Big Swinging Dick.”) BSDs are the perennial winners of the game of conspicuous earnings (giant bonuses), conspicuous consumption (giant co-ops and summer homes), and conspicuous philanthropy (giant plaques on public edifices). In recent years, with the explosion of wealth triggered by the credit and housing boom, a large number of BSDs were minted by the Holy Trinity: hedge funds, private equity, and investment banking.
   
Business Insider
22 Phrases That Only Wall Streeters Will Understand
LINETTE LOPEZ AND MAX NISEN FEB. 5, 2014, 4:20 PM
(...)
5. “Big swinging d——”
If you don’t know this term, you haven’t been anywhere near anyone on Wall Street. The BSD is the person that does the biggest deals, bring in the most money, and is generally a badass everyone looks up to.
 
The term was referenced in Michael Lewis’s “Liar’s Poker”: “If he could make millions of dollars come out of those phones, he became that most revered of all species: a Big Swinging D*ck.”

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityBanking/Finance/Insurance • Thursday, February 06, 2014 • Permalink


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