A Self-Guided Wall Street Walking Tour: Two Hours, No Ticket Needed
By 17John ·
Quick answer
You can walk the whole of historic Wall Street yourself in about two hours, for free, without a guide. The loop runs Federal Hall at 26 Wall Street, where Washington was sworn in as president in 1789, past the bomb scars still visible on 23 Wall, down to Trinity Church and Alexander Hamilton's grave, then to Charging Bull at Bowling Green, Fraunces Tavern on Pearl Street, and back up the cobblestones of Stone Street. Every stop below is within a 15-minute walk of John Street in the Financial District.
Paid Wall Street walking tours run about two hours and cost $40 or more a head. The route they take is public sidewalk, the buildings are free to look at, and the two best interiors on it (Federal Hall and Trinity Church) don't charge admission. So here's the version we give guests who ask, written as a loop you can walk yourself.
It starts and ends on John Street, because that's our block, and the whole thing covers a bit over a mile. Give it two hours if you read the plaques and go inside things, an hour if you're just walking it. Weekday mornings are best: Federal Hall keeps limited weekday hours, the streets have some life to them, and you'll still beat the tour groups if you're out before nine. Weekends are quieter and prettier for photos, but a few interiors will be shut.
One thing worth knowing before you start. Wall Street is narrow, shorter than people expect, and mostly in shadow. The scale surprises everyone. This is a 17th-century Dutch street grid with 20th-century towers dropped into it, which is exactly what makes it interesting on foot and unremarkable from a bus window.
The two-hour loop
0:00
Start on John Street
Head west to Broadway, then south. You're walking the edge of what was the original Dutch settlement. Nassau, Pearl and Stone Streets all predate the United States, which is why nothing down here lines up on a grid.
0:10
Federal Hall National Memorial, 26 Wall Street
The single most important spot on the walk. George Washington took the oath of office as the first president on this site on April 30, 1789, and the first Congress met here. The building he stood on was demolished in 1812; what you see now is an 1842 customs house in Greek Revival marble, with John Quincy Adams Ward's bronze Washington on the steps. It's a National Park Service site, free to enter, and the rotunda inside is the payoff. Hours are limited and mostly weekdays, so check nps.gov that morning.
0:30
23 Wall Street, the corner across the way
Look at the limestone on the Wall Street side, roughly waist to shoulder height. Those pockmarks are from the bombing of September 16, 1920, when a horse-drawn wagon packed with explosives detonated outside J.P. Morgan's headquarters and killed 38 people. The bank never repaired the facade. Nobody was ever charged. Most people walk past it every day without knowing.
0:40
New York Stock Exchange and Fearless Girl, Broad at Wall
The 1903 building with the Corinthian columns is the Exchange. You can't go in; public tours ended in 2001 and haven't come back, so don't queue for anything. Fearless Girl stands across from the main facade, moved here in 2018 from her original spot facing the bull. It's a five-minute stop, but it's the photo everyone wants.
0:50
Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall Street
Wall Street dead-ends into it, which is a better piece of urban theater than any monument. This is the third Trinity on the site, consecrated in 1846, and it was the tallest structure in New York for most of the 19th century. Go into the churchyard on the north side: Alexander Hamilton, Eliza Hamilton and Robert Fulton are all buried there. The church interior is free and usually open midday.
1:05
Bowling Green and Charging Bull
Walk south down Broadway about five minutes. Bowling Green has been a public park since 1733, the oldest in the city, and the bull sits at its north end. Arturo Di Modica installed it without permission outside the Stock Exchange in 1989; the city removed it, then relented and put it here. Expect a crowd at both ends of the animal unless you're early.
1:15
Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, 1 Bowling Green
The Beaux-Arts pile facing the green, finished in 1907 to Cass Gilbert's design, now holds the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Admission is free. Even on a tight schedule, step into the oval rotunda and look up at the murals. It's the grandest room downtown that costs nothing.
1:30
Fraunces Tavern, 54 Pearl Street
A three-minute walk east. Washington said goodbye to his officers in the Long Room upstairs on December 4, 1783, nine days after the British left New York. The building has been rebuilt and restored more than once, so treat the brick with some skepticism, but the museum upstairs is real and worth the small admission. The bar on the ground floor is a bar, and a decent one.
1:45
Stone Street, then back up to John
Cut north to Stone Street, one cobblestone block closed to traffic and lined with restaurant tables. It's the natural place to end: sit down, eat something, and you're about a ten-minute walk from where you started. In warm months the whole block fills up after 5pm, so if you want a table, get there before the finance crowd does.
