January 11, 2008

Museum of American Finance opens on Wall Street

The Museum of American Finance opens to the public today on Wall Street, in the former headquarters of the Bank of New York.

The museum will serve as the "de facto visitors center” for the nearby New York Stock Exchange, which was permanently closed to the public after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. (However, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York still offers tours.)

The new 48 Wall Street location for the Museum of American Finance replaces a one-room below-ground location the museum formerly occupied near the bull on Broadway. The new space has 30,000 square feet of space for exhibitions on financial markets, money, banking, entrepreneurship and Alexander Hamilton. There's also an auditorium, library and research facility.

Museum of American Finance is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Museum (like the nearby National Museum of the American Indian located in the former U.S. Customs House.) It will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults; $5 for students and seniors; while children 6 and under are free.

It’s a big season for new museums in New York, as both the New Museum for Contemporary Art and historic Eldridge Street Synagogue reopened in December. The Brooklyn Children’s Museum is on track to reopen sometime this spring after major renovations. The Sports Museum of America has pushed back its opening to May, according to Crain’s. The USS Intrepid, currently unergoing repairs at Staten Island, is scheduled to return to Manhattan on September 26, but will not reopen as an air and space museum until Nov. 11.

In addition, major renovations are also on tap for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the United Nations.

January 11, 2008 09:17 AM in Architecture, Downtown, History, Kids, Museums, Sightsology, Tours

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