Club History
Founded in 1991, Wall Street Dragons is one of the original clubs that started dragonboating in New York. Originally an off-shoot of the Wall Street Chapter of the Lions Club, WSD was once known as Wall Street Lions with its paddlers predominantly Lions Club members. As the club began to grow and take on more interest in cultivating the youth membership, we had a significant merger in 1998 with the YMCA Sea Dragons and the NY Wall Street Lions under Wall Street’s name.
After this merger, WSL looked to expand its youth component as well as to provide a stronger cultural presence in NYC. So while keeping the well known “Wall Street” part of its name, the club was transformed into the Wall Street Dragons Cultural Foundation, a non-profit club, melding both sport and cultural awareness in the community. WSD was founded in the belief that dragonboating extends beyond paddles in the water. To support that belief, we have offered scholarships to acknowledge excellence and efforts in academics and the community as well as providing opportunities to support our high school and college aged members in their pursuits outside of the dragon boat.
In recent years, our club has also volunteered with the New York Road Runners Club and volunteered at the finish line for the NYC Half and Full Marathons. In our 25 years of existence, we have formed close relationships with other teams as far North as Canada, Toronto Area Dragons and as far south as Florida, Red Dragons. WSD has teamed up with them at various times to form crews to race all over the world. WSD has a solid membership hovering around 80 members. Several of our core members have been paddling since DB started in NYC in 1991.
In addition to our regular seasonal races, WSD has raced all across the globe in Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Japan, and Hawaii. We've had individual members who have qualified to represent Team USA and have raced in World Championships in Australia, Tampa, Hungary, and Welland.
WSD is far more than just a dragon boat club-it is truly a family. Many of us have been paddling together for over 10 seasons and the friendships that have developed are unparalleled.