After our little Christie’s adventure and getting a 16th century work of art that was on auction, it was back to Wall Street - literally - for a look at how the markets ended after such a volatile week. Last time we went was a weekend and the only people there were tourists. Today it seemed the tourists had been replaced by police in bullet-proof vests carrying machine guns, and most of the street was blocked off to traffic and people.

Before 9/11, people could go inside the NYSE and actually have a view of the trading that was going on. Since then though, all the exchanges have extremely tight security and none are open to the public. So while it might be a necessary precaution, it does take out a bit of the fun of visiting these places. For a trader it’s sort of like getting to see the outside of a nice restaurant without being able to go in and taste the food

So while it was all well and good to be on Wall Street, we decided there wasn’t too much to see, and after Grace did her weekly video blog for GraceCheng.com we went off down the street following the light - yes, the street is in the shadows of the skyscrapers that tower above it - and before we knew it we were on the waterfront with a great view of Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Sea gulls, sailing ships, and bridges in New York

Which reminds me, we noticed that most of New York feels colder and doesn’t seem as sunny as the place we’re staying in Jersey City. So far our best bet is that most of the streets in New York are constantly kept in the shadows of its skyscrapers and that’s what keeps the temperature on the streets lower than where we are. The exception might be in the early morning when the sun is still high enough in the sky that the buildings don’t catch much of a shadow.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 11:05 am and is filed under New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.