Money makes this museum go 'round

NEW YORK -- With the dollar sinking to new lows against the euro, oil prices piercing the $100 mark, and Wall Street on the verge of losing its once-undisputed leadership position in the world's capital markets, it might seem like a strange time to re-launch a museum celebrating the world of finance here.

But this Friday, the Museum of American Finance will re-open a block away from the New York Stock Exchange after a $9 million makeover.

Its goal is to become a major tourist attraction in lower Manhattan, an educational destination where busloads of school children can learn the basics about the country's financial system, and an archive of mementos, artifacts and other memorabilia from some of the nation's most famous financiers.

For the past two decades, the museum — the brainchild of John Herzog, a second-generation broker on Wall Street — has operated like the little financial collection that could. In a city stocked with world-class museums dedicated to art, science and culture, the Museum of American Finance wasn't even an afterthought. It was housed in a small space and promoted via word of mouth.

Herzog launched the museum as a reaction to the '87 market crash. During that crash, traders at his firm, Herzog Heine Geduld, were in an uproar. "It was crazy, like the movies, everybody screaming at once," he says. "I remember listening to the radio and realizing that Americans did not really understand what the capital markets were all about."

In 1988 Herzog secured a small space in the U.S. Customs House. His first exhibition drew 1,000 people. In 1989, an exhibit celebrating Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury secretary, attracted 6,000. Herzog knew he was onto something.