New York Stock Exchange

Home to the world’s best-known stock exchange (the NYSE), Wall Street has become the widely recognized symbol for US capitalism. Before it closed to the public due to stepped-up security measures, more than 700,000 visitors a year passed behind the portentous Romanesque facade to see where about a billion shares valued at around $44 billion change hands daily. Feel free to gawk outside the building, though, where you’ll see dozens of brokers dressed in color-coordinated trading jackets popping out for lunch or a smoke; luckily for you, the street scene outside is often more entertaining than the money-swapping within. (Also feel free to visit the online shop, www.stweed-nyse.com, which lets you purchase souvenirs, like a hooded NYSE sweatshirt, as if you’d actually been inside). Frantic buying and selling by those familiar red-faced traders screaming ‘Sell! Sell!’ goes on at the New York Mercantile Exchange, near Vesey St. This exchange deals in gold, gas and oil commodities, but no longer with tourists; like the NYSE, it’s closed to visitors.