This week marks the 15th anniversary of Maria Bartiromo’s first broadcast live from the New York Stock Exchange. To commemorate the event, CNBC had MB ring the opening bell, join Mark Haines and Erin Burnett on floor during Squawk on the Street, and– I’m assuming though it’s not yet been confirmed– be launched out of a cannon in lieu of the closing bell. The network also asked Bartiromo to weigh in on these last fifteen years. In a long and storied career, in which so much has gone down– what has stuck out most in Maria’s mind? What does she remember? Well…

There’s the icy reception she initially got, by people who didn’t want her or her crew on the floor.

I wasn’t welcomed by everybody, for sure. I have to give so much credit to Dick Grasso because he truly allowed us to broadcast from the floor. And he made it happen. I remember Mike Robbins, who really scared me and yelled at me and didn’t want me around back then. I would walk around the building so that I didn’t have to pass him because he hated me so much. But I kept coming back and I made sure that I knew my stuff so that he couldn’t push me around, and then I found out that he was on the board of the exchange. So there definitely were a group of people who felt that, `Why are we opening up this to the public? Why are we trying to demystify the markets?’

Later, being treated like one of the guys.

However, very soon into it I did get a lot of camaraderie, and I had a lot of pals on the floor. When I got married, they did to me what they normally do to the guys… while I was in a conversation with somebody, I was standing at a post, unbeknownst to me, they were putting… they were tying a ball and chain around my ankle as a joke, and then I couldn’t move. You know, and they did a lot of things like that.

And September 11. Her birthday.

Q: Let’s turn to something a bit more serious, your birthday, September 11th, 2001. Back in 2001, when the 9/11 attacks occurred, you were broadcasting live at the New York Stock Exchange. What was that day like for you? A: It was a tragedy for everybody. I got into work like I always do, and it was my birthday, and I remember my assistant at the time had gotten me a beautiful bouquet of flowers. We saw the first plane go into the first building on television. And then my boss, David Friend, calls me up and says, `Go outside and call into the studio. Tell us what’s happening.’ So in a minute I was up on my feet, running to Broadway, and I got out to Broadway, and there were throngs and throngs of people looking straight ahead, and it was just the next block over. And we saw one of the buildings on fire, and we were all stunned…I was covered in soot. I remember I had my burgundy suit on (which I saved. I still have.) It was all covered in white soot and smoke. And my black patent leather shoes were totally white in soot.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Bitchy von Hair Streaks is gonna hurt me? I don’t think so.

He may be the Andrew Tong to Wall Street/Washington/the neighborhood kids’ Ping Jiang (by which I mean people choke him out, and he doesn’t say anything), but damn it, if his time with the ladies has taught Tim Geithner anything it’s that he is a strong, proud woman whose self-worth will not be diminished by your bitchiness and faux-sincerity.

[CNBC] a notorious cheerleader for the stock market, seemed a cinch to celebrate any Dow milestone. So Bartiromo’s sharp interrogation was jolting. She laced Geithner with questions about whether the Obama administration was “anti-business,” plotting to raise taxes and bullying banks to cut dividend payments, and she even suggested he might be engaging in “class warfare” against the rich. Bartiromo didn’t outright call Geithner an agent of Obama’s socialist agenda, but that was the spirit of the affair. Geithner held firm to the issue of growth, and persevered. Bad as it looked, this was a mere dusting: he’d endured worse. When the cameras stopped rolling, the pair stood up and briskly shook hands, and Geithner headed for the door. Then, suddenly, Bartiromo spun around and called out after him, in a tone that expressed something between self-justification and apology, “I know you have an impossible job!”

Tim Geithner: Inside Man [The Atlantic]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Bitchy von Hair Streaks is gonna hurt me? I don’t think so.

He may be the Andrew Tong to Wall Street/Washington/the neighborhood kids’ Ping Jiang (by which I mean people choke him out, and he doesn’t say anything), but damn it, if his time with the ladies has taught Tim Geithner anything it’s that he is a strong, proud woman whose self-worth will not be diminished by your bitchiness and faux-sincerity.

[CNBC] a notorious cheerleader for the stock market, seemed a cinch to celebrate any Dow milestone. So Bartiromo’s sharp interrogation was jolting. She laced Geithner with questions about whether the Obama administration was “anti-business,” plotting to raise taxes and bullying banks to cut dividend payments, and she even suggested he might be engaging in “class warfare” against the rich. Bartiromo didn’t outright call Geithner an agent of Obama’s socialist agenda, but that was the spirit of the affair. Geithner held firm to the issue of growth, and persevered. Bad as it looked, this was a mere dusting: he’d endured worse. When the cameras stopped rolling, the pair stood up and briskly shook hands, and Geithner headed for the door. Then, suddenly, Bartiromo spun around and called out after him, in a tone that expressed something between self-justification and apology, “I know you have an impossible job!”

Tim Geithner: Inside Man [The Atlantic]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker