Maiden Lane, a small, winding street in Lower Manhattan, is home to the rear entrance of the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Its name was lent nearly a decade ago to a lending facility created by the Fed to assist JPMorgan in its emergency acquisition of the fatally wounded broker-dealer Bear Stearns.

The symbolism was rich: The Fed was lending out its back door in an emergency effort to contain the biggest financial crisis since the 1920s.