Address: 1000 Peachtree Street, N.E.
Pricing: Free
Phone: (404) 498-8764
Hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
How To Get There:
Going north on I-75/85, take Exit 250 (10th Street/14th Street/17th Street), turn right onto 10th Street, and left onto Peachtree Street. The Bank is located at the intersection of 10th and Peachtree streets.
Parking:Parking garages, $5 to $10, or metered parking.
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Federal Reserve Bank Museum: free cash and a movie
Published: Apr 23, 2009
Not only is a visit to the museum at Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta free, they'll even give you a bag of cash as a souvenir. Of course, the cash has been shredded and unspendable: but it's real money.
The Atlanta Fed's Visitors Center and Monetary Museum is a gem. The bank is housed in a huge marble edifice on Peachtree Street, across from the Margaret Mitchell House. You walk into a soaring marble atrium and pass rigid security before entering the museum. No cameras are permitted, but there's a visitor's closet with lockers that you can use to stow your Nikon.
Inside are displays of artifacts of money, tracing the history of things humans used to trade, including African throwing knives, Chinese shoe money, and wampum. See rare coins and currency, including Confederate money and the Louisiana $10 note bearing the word Dix -- French for ten — thought by some to be the origin of the term Dixie.
The Fed's website offers a link to the story of money display.
An actual gold bar, just like the kind they stack up at Fort Knox, is displayed in a case, and visitors are invited to pull a lever to lift it and feel its heft. The changing value of the bar flashes on a screen nearby.
Walk past a display of a giant $20 bill and watch the front turn to the back. Nearby are details of security features in the bill, including fine engraving details and security threads. Interactive exhibits invite the visitor to examine samples of currency and learn how to detect counterfeit and genuine bills.
Play at being a banker at two LCD touch screens, which explain through the interactive "Banker's Challenge" game how banks make a profit and manage risk. (Hey, somebody had better learn!) Watch one of two films explaining the role of the Federal Reserve and the transaction of money.
Through the clear Plexiglas walls of the museum, you can watch Federal Reserve workers sort currency in the Fed's automated vault and cash processing areas. In the back is a cube known a cash bus, filled with currency. That's how large sums of cash are transported around the country. See more about the tour layout on the Fed website.
The Atlanta Fed is open during the week for nonscheduled tours for individuals and groups of fewer than 10 people. School, business and community groups of 10-30 people may schedule free guided tours which usually include a stop in the bank's boardroom. Group tours are by appointment only, must be scheduled two weeks in advance, and are offered Monday through Friday at 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., and 1 p.m.
- by Diane Loupe, Atlanta Reporter for HelloMetro
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