Inside the Most Secure Building In The World

Imagine walking down Wall Street and inspecting this perfectly normal-looking building. If you didn't know any better, you wouldn't even realize you're walking above the largest gold depository in the entire world. This building in Lower Manhattan is estimated to hold an impressive 6,350 tons of gold worth $203.3 billion. That's between 5 and 10 percent of the entire world's gold storage. All of this storage makes the building absolutely integral to protect, as its loss would not only impact the United States economy, but the global economy as a whole. This building is, of course, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. So what is the Federal Reserve, and why does it exist? Well, banks back in early 1900s America were privately owned, so in the case that one failed, everyone with money invested in them would essentially just lose it all. When one bank failed, in a mass panic people would remove their money from other banks. This is what is known as a bank run, because banks are not designed to be able to pay all of their clients back at once. This would result in those banks being forced to go under as well. Unfortunately for the banks, due to the impact of the Civil War and an inability following for the country to guarantee any kind of financial stability, the United States regularly found itself in a slew of economic depressions. Even just a small local bank failing would result in mass nationwide panic. This exact scenario happened in 1907 with the collapse of the Knickerbocker Trust Company. F. Augustus Hines, a financier in association with Knickerbocker, decided to try and buy up a large quantity of the country's copper and sell it at a higher price to make some profit. However, what this did accomplish was crashing the stock market, triggering a broader financial panic in a place which was already panicked. This caused a mass bank run on nearly every bank he was involved with, and even many that he wasn't. So as a means to prevent the entire economy from crashing, they needed to turn to J.P. Morgan, one of the richest men in the world at the time, to help bail out the ones on the verge of failing from doing so. It was incredibly clear that this financial system in the United States just plainly wasn't working. So President Woodrow Wilson, on December 23rd, 1913, would sign into law the Federal Reserve Act, which established the Federal Reserve across the United States. In essence, the Federal Reserve acts as a bank for the banks. In those wild panics where everyone decides they want to withdraw all their money, the regular banks can borrow that money from the Reserve which acts as a central banking system, preventing them from having to shut down. This isn't a new system, however. In fact, it had been around since the 1600s in the Netherlands and the 1700s in the UK, and had shown massive success in improving the economy of those countries that it was finally time for the United States to jump on board and join them. Now, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the biggest, but it's not the only Federal Reserve Bank that was established, but rather one of 12 in a system that are spread across the country. As useful and, frankly, necessary the Reserve Bank system was for the United States, the sheer size of the operation has actually resulted in it having a much bigger responsibility than just being a bank for banks, but rather being a bank for other countries as well. Shortly after this central banking system was established, it would start engaging in not just national business, but international business as well. During and after World War I, the US would emerge as a major financial power, and the Federal Reserve would start to interact with foreign central banks to manage war debts and international payments, and over time, more and more central banks would ship their gold stores to New York. In fact, the large majority of the gold located at the New York Fed is actually not from the United States, but actually is just stored there by other countries. So, why would other countries want the United States to be responsible for their gold? It's for a couple of reasons. The most critical reason, and depending on the country, perhaps the most important at the time, is security. Many countries post-World War II were in financial ruin and desperately needed some form of stability in order to rebuild. However, Europe remained very unstable, especially as it transitioned into the Cold War. Countries like the Netherlands, France, and Germany all chose to store their gold at the Federal Reserve because it wants to ensure that in the case that the country were to find itself back at war or was to get invaded by another country such as the Soviets, they would not lose access to the bulk of the country's finances. As the Federal Reserve does for the banks within the United States, it has been used as an integral emergency relief for countries all across the world. But many countries even outside the immediate threat of war have decided to keep their gold stores with the US and specifically at the New York Fed. The reason for this has to do with the ease of managing the funds internationally. Countries decided that having a centralized place where all the gold could be stored provided an easy means for countries to trade and exchange it without it needing to even be removed from the vault, allowing for the quick settlement of debts and payments between nations. Many countries like the aforementioned ones as well as others like Japan and Italy all decided to participate, making the New York Fed somewhat of an international currency exchange that countries still benefit from to this day. With all this value located in one building, you'd be correct in assuming that the place is incredibly well protected. But how do they secure it? As you could probably guess, gaining access to the vault is not as simple as just walking in the front door and asking nicely. First off, to even get to the vault, an elevator descends 80 feet or 24 meters into the earth, navigating beneath the city's network of power lines, gas pipes, and subway tunnels. In fact, it goes nearly all the way to the bedrock, which lays just a few feet lower. The bedrock is necessary for structural support to bear the immense weight of the vault and all its contents. The vault is safeguarded by a multi-layered security system. There are 90-ton steel cylinders protecting the only entry into the vault. The 9-foot-tall cylinder is set within a 140-ton steel and concrete frame that, when closed, creates a seal that is airtight and watertight to protect not only from any would-be thief trying to complete a Mission Impossible-style heist, but also from potential environmental hazards. Also, once closed, four steel rods are inserted into the holes in the cylinder and time clocks are engaged, locking the vault until the next business day. The gold itself is stored in compartments secured with a padlock, two combination locks, and an auditor seal, each compartment representing a different country's stores. However, specifically which country represents which compartment is kept a secret via specific security codes. This allows for countries to exchange with only the needed parties being aware of it. Additionally, 24-hour video surveillance and motion sensor monitoring ensure the vault's contents are protected at all times. For maximum security, no single person knows all the time locks and combinations needed to unlock the compartments, requiring three individuals to access the vault at any time. In fact, the only most highly trusted of humans are even permitted inside the bank's vault. Instead, unless human intervention is absolutely necessary, the pallets of gold are moved by a team of robots and inserted into their proper locations within the vault. To top everything off, if somehow you manage to infiltrate and slip past every piece of technological security, the Fed even has its own reserve police force and highly trained marksmen responsible for watching over the vault at all times. It's safe to say that your odds of getting in and out of the vault with any value, especially when unwanted, is about as close to impossible as it gets. Despite the known history of the Fed, it has actually long been shrouded in mystery and somewhat in confusion as it pertains to the public. It is known that the Fed is independently owned, yet it works within the government. So who actually owns it? Who's responsible for it? Many theories have risen over the years in regards to how the Fed operates internally and who actually owns it, because despite it being a part of the government, it actually doesn't have to report to Congress. It also doesn't require presidential permissions to make decisions. The official answer for who actually owns the Fed is, well, nobody. It's considered to be an independent entity within the government, governed by an appointed group of people via the President and approved by the Senate. And thanks to J.P. Morgan all those years ago, each specific location functions like a separate private corporation, all with their own stocks. However, this explanation doesn't always satisfy the masses, with belief that it is actually owned and run by a small, elite group of bankers and stockbrokers looking to line their own pockets. Or perhaps it's owned by the Illuminati, or a group of lizard people looking to manipulate the masses. I guess we'll never truly know. Bye for now.