Federal Hall

A Friday morning my friend Daniela and I decided to go into the Federal Hall to learn more about the economy of the country and to explore an unknown place for us. As we stand in front of the building from the street, we could observe many people, on their majority tourists sitting on the steps and taking photos of themselves in front of the Federal Hall. We assume the majority were tourists because they were wearing shirts that said “I love New York” which is considered something only tourists do. Next to us in the street, there was a tour guy from the tour company “New York Tour 1” where I used to work. He was explaining to a group of students how the first terrorist attack that happened in the city of New York was on that same place we were standing on and that the building in front of the hall stills today having holes of the mini bomb that exploded.

The temperature was around seventy degrees which caused more people than usual to be on the streets. As we started to maneuver to get around the folks that were in front of the building to go up the steps, I could observe many other tour guides with different groups of people. I decided to approach some of these groups as I was curious about what the tour guides were saying to them. Most of them were explaining the history of the place and some basics on how the economy of the United States works as the New York Stock Exchange is just in front of the Federal Hall. Others were talking about the Trump Tower which is on the same block, its construction, and how Trump managed to go from real state to creating his brand and be president. Once we decided to go up the steps, I could feel the sun warming my back which was comforting after such a long winter. Daniela and I stopped at the entrance of the building to take some photos like others were doing.

The doors of the building were clear with black borders. On them, different posters showed that you could not take photos with flash or have your phone’s sound on. Inside the building, there were many people, on their majority teenagers talking loudly in different languages. Dany and I proceed to explore the three floors of the building that we had access to. In the first floor, there were a series of small rooms that had different exhibits telling the history of civil war, congress, supreme court, and federal branch which were all started in the same building the Federal Hall is now located. As well, in one of the rooms, there was a film showing that talks about the different National Parks in New York. Many people were interested in the movie because as one of them was sayin; it gave her ideas of different places she wanted to visit while staying in the city. In the same floor, there was a small room showing little bags that contained gold inside, and a person who works in the Hall was explaining on how the economy used to rely on gold before paper money was created. She was saying how before you could even go to the bank with paper money and ask for silver or gold in exchange, but now we do not have enough gold to back up the amount of money in circulation. So, now we keep the gold under the streets somewhere in Wall Street with lots of security to make sure no one attempts to steal it.

After exploring the first floor, we decided to go to the basement where we just found huge lines to get into the bathrooms and many different groups of kids just hanging out and drinking water. Also, there was an unpleasant smell of sweat and marijuana. Once we figured there was nothing to see there we took the elevator right in front of the stairs and went to the second floor as we had no access to the third floor. As we walked out the elevator there was a series of rooms with boxes full of different documents,  but we were not allowed to go inside none of these rooms but an exhibit that was to our right. We were not truly interested in the exhibit, so we decided to take photos of the beautiful architecture of the dome.

Finally, this excursion was fun as it was the first day of the year that the temperature was high and we were able to be outside without coats. We also got to learn some history from the city and got to meet many people that were visiting from many different places. In the beginning, I did not feel so comfortable to be in a place where I have never been before, but being with my friend made it a lot easier and fun. In conclusion, I have decided that every week I will go to different places that I never visited all over the city as there is so much to see and learn about this multicultural city.