NYSE – Downtown Magazine

Photo: J. Kratochvil.

Downtown NYC is filling up with the holiday spirit! We’ve included here a roundup of upcoming holiday lighting ceremonies and fun festivities.

*South Street Seaport’s Chanukah Family Fun Day, Nov. 28, 3pm-5pm

Photo: J. Kratochvil.

Festivities begin with the Grand Ice Carving of Menorah Show – 3:00pm – 3:30pm

Indoor and Outdoor Activities and Entertainment – 3:00pm – 4:30pm
Families can enjoy a variety of winter themed and Chanukah activities and projects including balloons, coloring books, and donut decorating. RSVP for Chanukah crafts here.
Grand Menorah Lighting – 4:30pm – 5:00pm
Celebrate the start of Chanukah with your loved ones as neighborhood figureheads light the first candle at sundown.

Brookfield Place Luminaries, Nov. 29-Jan. 2

This installation and holiday tradition features a canopy of colorful lights emanating from hundreds of suspended lanterns. Luminaries was created by the LAB at Rockwell Group for Brookfield Place, inspired by the season’s traditions of sharing, giving, and community.

Touchless wishing stations located on the ground allow visitors to send a motion-activated ‘wish’ into the canopy of lanterns above, prompting a magical display of lights and colors. For each wish made and each interaction with Luminaries, Brookfield Place will donate $1 up to $25,000 to City Harvest, New York City’s largest food rescue organization.

This year, Luminaries debuts Maestro, a new interactive experience that will enable guests to conduct their own symphony. Maestro leverages skeletal tracking technology which allows you to show off your creativity as your own unique light show is displayed in unison with holiday music. The kiosk is an organic form, inspired by an abstraction of global instruments from harps to guitars, and is manufactured by Timbur and made of CNC-milled plywood.

NYSE Tree Lighting, Dec. 1, 2pm-6pm

The NYSE’s Tree Lighting prepares for its 98th holiday season. Head over to Experience Plaza, on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets. The event will feature performances by the Harlem Globetrotters, The Salvation Army Band, Senri Oe, the Léman Manhattan Preparatory School Choir and the USMC Toys for Tots Kettle Bell Ringers; holiday-ready companies like Build-a-Bear, Barkbox and Coca-Cola will also be getting in on the festivities-Santa may also be stopping by! Refreshments will be served. The event will livestream beginning 4:15pm. nyse.com

The Seaport Christmas Tree Lighting Block Party, Dec. 2, 5pm-8pm

Ring in the holidays with live music, pictures with Santa, hot chocolate, apple cider, and kids crafts the block party will have indoor and outdoor activities open to the public. Schedule breakdown:
Holiday crafts and live music – The Corner, 25 Fulton St. (RSVP here)
Kids’ coloring activities – McNally Jackson Books, 4 Fulton St.
Hot chocolate at Cobble & Co. and hot apple cider from Fulton Stall Market – Cobble & Co., 19 Fulton and St. Fulton Stall Market, Corner of Fulton St. and Water St.
Mulled wine and spiked hot chocolate – Garden Bar, 19 Fulton St.
Hester Street Pop-Up Marketing – 205 Front St. (5:00pm – 9:00pm)
Sip & shop at SJP – SJP by Sarah Jessica Parker, 93 South St.
Christmas tree cookies – Funny Face Bakery, 6 Fulton St.
Upcoming Exhibit Previews – The South Street Seaport Museum, 12 Fulton St.
Live music performances – (5:30pm – 8:00pm)
Photobooth with Santa – 8 Fulton St.
Christmas Tree Lighting – 6:45pm
Watch the Howard Hughes Corporation and special music guests light the locally sourced tree and enjoy the Christmas magic.
The Ugly Sweater Party – 8:00pm – 12:00am
Unwind and celebrate the start of the holiday season with specialty cocktails and music from special guest DJ Mel Debarge at Pearl Alley. RSVP free for the Ugly Sweater Party here.

Holiday Lights at Battery Park, Dec. 2, 6pm

Celebrate the fifth night of Chanukah and see the annual tree lighting at Battery Park’s Holiday Lights event! Special appearances by Sing Harlem Choir, PS/IS 276 Advanced Chorus, and you-know-who! Free RSVP here.

Washington Square Park Tree Lighting, Dec. 8, 6pm

Washington Square Park Christmas Treet — Washington Square Park Tree Lighting Ceremony

NYC’s iconic park in the heart of Greenwich Village prepares for the holiday season. There will also be a Meta/Facebook live event, streaming The Rob Susman Brass Quarter along with singalong holiday songs. Santa may make an appearance. Also, there will be Christmas Eve caroling Dec. 24, at 5pm. washingtonnyc.org

Of all the coins to find on the streets of New York City, few passersby expected to find a one-tonne gold coin on a New York sidewalk. The one-tonne Australian Kangaroo coin was on display Thursday, July 18th, outside of the New York Stock Exchange, marking the arrival of the Perth Mint to the world’s preeminent precious metals market.

The NYSE opened Thursday with a physical gold ETF product, AAAU, listed by the Perth Mint. An ETF, or Exchange-Traded Fund, is an investment fund which holds assets and can be traded on stock exchanges. In this case, the asset is real-life physical gold, which will be safeguarded within the vaults of the Perth Mint.

The move is a big one for gold traders, opening up Australia’s multi-billion dollar gold mining sector. “Launching AAAU here…was a natural progression for us,” said Perth Mint CEO Richard Hayes, “we may now offer American investors and the wider global market another platform through which they may invest in Perth Mint gold.”

The One Tonne Australian Kangaroo coin, which was displayed outside of NYSE for one day only, is as close as Perth Mint has to a mascot. The coin, which was worth about $50 million on the day it was displayed, “represents the vast natural riches found Down Under and Australia’s multi-billion dollar mining sector,” as well as the size and quality of the mint’s operations and its 120-year heritage.

Being that important, and being a giant wheel made of gold, the Perth Mint had to be careful to avoid theft. Several years earlier their 2nd place competitors in coin size, the Royal Canadian Mint, suffered the theft of one of their six Big Maple Leaf coins, worth about 1 million dollars American. The One-Tonne Australian Kangaroo is ten times heavier than a Big Maple Leaf, but the Perth Mint didn’t leave anything to chance. “We worked with security, logistics, and fine art specialists to mitigate the risk of theft,” said Hayes, “Security remains our top consideration.”