By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
FINANCIAL DISTRICT — Goldman Sachs recently gave one of its consultants, Tom Comerford, an ultimatum.
Comerford could either quit his part-time job giving tours of Wall Street, or he could leave Goldman Sachs, where he had been working as a consultant for 10 years in the presentation graphics department.
For Comerford, 45, the choice was easy: He resigned from Goldman three weeks ago and is now devoting his full attention to the tours, which focus on the financial crisis.
“I couldn’t give up what I consider an acting gig,” Comerford said as he led a group of two-dozen tourists up Broad Street on a recent morning.
Comerford, a Bronx resident whose story was first reported by the Guardian, worked the 4 p.m. to midnight shift for a Goldman subcontractor and had always freelanced as an actor and singer on the side. He sought out the tour-guiding gig last year after Goldman slashed his hours to just 30 a week because of the recession.
“It didn’t occur to me that they were going to be upset about it,” Comerford said. “The tour is not about bashing banks or bashing Wall Street — it’s just about what went down.”
Comerford helps lead The Wall Street Experience’s two-hour Financial Crisis Tour, which takes visitors through Federal Hall and past all the major bank headquarters, discussing the history of Wall Street and the 2008 crisis.
While Comerford does not criticize Goldman any more than the other major banks, it is impossible to talk about the meltdown without casting some blame.
For example, Comerford recently compared the bundling of high-risk loans to building a Frankenstein monster out of dead body parts. Comerford later pointed out that it was another Goldman employee, Fabrice Tourre, who invented the analogy.
Comerford also joked about the Wall Street of the 17th and 18th centuries, when water was in such short supply that workers drank alcohol instead.
“Trade by day, drink by night — kind of like it is today,” Comerford said as the tourists laughed.
Comerford said he bears no animosity toward Goldman, but he thinks its decision was hasty and unfair. He said he invited his bosses to shadow a tour, but they declined.
A Goldman spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. Goldman’s chief spokesman confirmed Comerford’s account to the Guardian.
Comerford is now scrambling to find more work, but when he was asked if he missed his job at the banking giant, he just smiled.
“I can’t say that I do,” he said
