The Dutch arrived here first, building a wooden wall at the edge of New Amsterdam in 1635 to protect themselves from British settlers to the north and giving the narrow canyon of today's Wall Street its name. Still today, from behind the Neoclassical facade of the New York Stock Exchange on 8 Wall St, the purse strings of the capitalist world are pulled.

Come before noon for the best chance of getting into the NYSE Interactive Education Center , 20 Wall St (Mon-Fri 8.45am-4.30pm; free; tel 212/656-3000, www.nyse.com ), where the Exchange floor appears like a melee of brokers and buyers, scrambling for the elusive fractional cent on which to make a megabuck. After sitting through a glib introductory film and a small exhibition on the history of the Exchange, the hectic scurrying and constantly moving hieroglyphs of the stock prices will make more sense.

Wall Street and the Stock Exchange

• Wall Street and the Stock Exchange

Explore Wall Street and the Stock Exchange

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