Gold, over $193 billion of it. Shimmering bars, neatly stacked in a running-bond pattern eight feet high, and more beautiful than you might expect. They sit in steel cages, within a triple-tiered vault, five stories below 33 Liberty Street in the bedrock of downtown Manhattan. I am standing mere inches away, deep inside the limestone fortress that is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

This is Au, element 79 on the Periodic Table, gold. I slip a pinky inside one of the cages, through the layer of steel netting that forms a final barrier between the bullion and the streams of tourists who come to see it. I have seen bling, but I have never beheld gold en masse; it is pretty intoxicating. I think about the civilizations that first refined it, turning it into art and other things of beauty, and of those who coveted it: from the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, and Romans, to the Incas and Aztecs — and the Spanish who fleeced them, to the westward ’49ers in our own U.S. of A.

Thirty-six nations stash their gold in the New York Fed, but there are no names on the cells, so it is impossible to know which stacks belong to which countries, or indeed which countries are represented. As I speculate on whom they might be, we are directed out of the vault, back through the revolving chamber that seals it from the outside world, and into the waiting elevators that return us to ground level.

Annaline Dinkelmann begins her World of Finance tour with a little background on Alexander Hamilton and the Federal Reserve system.

There are twelve Federal Reserve Banks, one in each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts of the United States. Spearheaded by Alexander Hamilton, the First Bank of the United States, as it was then called, was founded in 1791 and housed in Philadelphia. However, it was not until November of 1914, nine months after the establishment of the Federal Reserve System, that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was opened for business.

I learned this and a whole lot more one recent morning as I toured New York’s financial district with Annaline Dinkelmann, the director of Wall Street Walks. The visit to the Fed was the final stop in a two-hour loop that began with a brief talk in front of 58 Wall Street and took in the New York Stock Exchange, Trinity Churchyard, Delmonico’s, Stone Street, Cipriani’s, Federal Hall, the U.S. Customs House, the Museum of American Finance, and more.

It is a bit startling to meet an émigré who knows more about downtown Manhattan than most New Yorkers, but Annaline is one such prodigy, recalling dates, places, and two-hundred-year-old gossip like she was there when it happened. A native of South Africa with a passion for history, Annaline came to New York twenty years ago and spent a decade of that time working at Morgan Stanley. She left the financial services firm in 2006 to become a licensed New York City Sightseeing Guide and an independent currency trader.

I chose the World of Finance walk but Annaline offers a number of themed tours: Architecture and Skyscrapers, The Women of Wall Street, and Alexander Hamilton’s Haunts are just a few. With New York’s premier walking season about to begin, I can’t think of a better treat for visitors and proud New Yorkers alike than a Wall Street Walks tour followed by lunch at one of the outdoor cafes along Stone Street.

To learn more, visit www.WallStreetWalks.com.

As always, I grabbed a few shots…

Tags: banking, featured, finance, history, New York, tour