Chunks of the Chicago Stock Exchange can fetch over half a million dollars each. On Tuesday Christie's will auction seven fragments of the exchange's elevators and staircases, which have leafy ironwork; canvas murals stenciled with vine stalks; and hexagonal skylight panes.
But according to the 55-page indictment put before the courts, the old tricks are still the best: memory sticks exchanged at "brush-passes" between agents on staircases, identical bags exchanged during "flash meetings" at train stations, envelopes covertly slipped between co-conspirators inside folded newspapers, and money buried in public parks to be dug up years later.
In the newly expanded American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum, two staircases from the exchange, which the museum bought during the 1972 demolition, have been adapted into zigzagging circulation routes for balconies full of vitrines for ceramics, silver, glass and jewelry.
With its spectacular domed ceiling, marble columns and sweeping red-carpeted staircase, Manchester's former stock exchange has little in common with most homeless hostels.
On Aug. 9, 250 people gathered in Studio J at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, where the couple exchanged vows on a staircase of the "Sesame Street" set.
In December the auction house will offer four more Stock Exchange components (estimates will range from $3,000 to $35,000), including elevator and staircase parts and a canvas frieze nearly eight feet long.
By exploiting the linear similarity between two series, namely the exchange rate Japanese Yen - United States Dollar (JPY-USD), and the generalized devil staircase (GDS) recursive plot, the possibility of synthesizing the real series by using the GDS generator is investigated.
The platforms were not overflowing, but a continual rush of people poured down escalators and off train cars, exchanged a few words with the workers and ran up other escalators and staircases.
