First Day in NYC (Day 20) 9/28/09

Garfield hates Monday mornings. Sometimes, I do too, but this Monday morning was quite special.

We started out the day bright and early. Dad and I donned our fancy clothes for the NYSE, and then proceeded to haul Greta out of bed to get her dress on. Greta isn't exactly a morning person.

Dad led us to the Times Square subway station, where we boarded a train to Rector street. Rector street is right next to the site of the World Trade Center; the site of ground zero is still completely empty. Construction is currently in progress for making a handfull of new skyscrapers and two fountains at the foundation of the destroyed towers.

We walked away from the site, and to our delight the next street we saw was.... Wall Street! However, these days Wall St. is not so much of a street as a large pedestrian path with permanently placed police officers. There even was an K9 officer playing with his dog. It's not very often that you see an off-leash attack dog chewing on a toy!

Dad took us to the guest entrance to the New York Stock Exchange. Our reservations and IDs were checked, and our chaperone (One of Dad's connections from Blue Capital) came out to lead us in. Inside, our photos were taken, and we tried to explain our names to the ID manager. My ID came out as 'Marlow Durbin' after the man almost put me down as 'Low Durbing'. Greta wasn't so fortunate; she came out as 'Grenda Durbin'. We all joked about that as we walked onto the trading floor.

I can't explain how amazing it is to be in, essentially, the center of the world economy. Even before the opening bell was rung, men in suits were rushing around asking questions to other men and women stationed at stacked screens, typing furiously. I'd bet money that this floor has collectively over an acre of LCD. Maybe two.

The floor is divided into four rooms. Each room has a handfull of 'islands', each with about a dozen traders on the inside and outside staring at screens. I learned that the traders at each screen are assigned a handfull of stocks. They are in charge of meeting the buy and sell requests and determining prices. I didn't know that there is only one designated person for trading several companies' stock!

The next stop was a smaller, calmer room. Dad told me this is the new site of the AMEX, which is basically the Options trading area of the NYSE. Options, in a nutshell, are a type of derivative where you agree to buy or sell something in some amount of time for a certain price. However, unlike other derivatives, Options also include the ability to back out of an agreement.

After this amazing experience, we left the NYSE with many thanks to Dad's connection who let us in. We headed back to the hotel to change our clothes, and went back downtown to see the Statue of Liberty. Once we arrived at Battery Park, we headed over to look at the tickets for the Statue ferry ride. The tickets would have costed about 40 dollars total, had a 2-hour line and would only allow us to walk the grounds of the statue. Dad decided to opt out.

The rest of the afternoon was spent touring lower Manhattan, including seeing parts of SoHo, NoHo, Greenwich Village. Nothing can really top seeing the Stock Exchange, so we headed back to the hotel to chill. I took a nap for a couple hours, theb headed to dinner at a sushi restaurant. We finished up the day at the Columbus Circle mall. The reason Dad chose this mall is because it has a very famous statue in the front of a man with his, erm, southern region rubbed shiny. After this highlight of the evening, we chilled in a Borders, and headed back to the hotel to catch some Z's.