NYSE Tour

On New Year's Eve we won a door prize at a party that included a tour of the New York Stock Exchange and lunch at Bobby Van's Steakhouse in the Wall St. area. We decided to enjoy our prize one Friday in January.

The visitor's gallery is now closed and the public can no longer enter the NYSE unescorted. We had taken our kids to the visitor's gallery in 1997, and I had been a long time ago with my parents. Now that the NYSE is virtually paperless it is a less exciting scene to behold. The trades occur electronically and the number of staff on the floor is down by over 75% from what it was pre-electronic trading. Still it was very exciting for us.

We had to wait outside the building for our escorts. Across the street facing the NYSE were pairs of SWAT guys very seriously scanning the streets. No vehicles are permitted in this area. The good guys at Dru-Stock got us signed in and gave us a great tour. We're wearing two different visitor badges (above). They told us about the history of the rooms, introduced us to the different areas for different types of trading and services, demonstrated their hand-held trading/communication devices, and walked us by the on-site media offices, like CNN's, where we saw reporters preparing to go on air.

Lunch was delicious and a wonderful finish to a fascinating day. A great door prize!