FINANCE IN STONE (OR LEAD-COATED REPLICAS)

Puzzled indeed to find neoclassicism masking another paradox in the pediment sculpture of the core of global speculation:  Integrity Protecting the Works of Man, among which bend heavily, here, Agriculture and Mining. It is the work of John Quincy Adams Ward and Paul Wayland Bartlett—carved in marble however by "the Piccirilli brothers."

The NYSE notes of its unwitting vagaries: "In 1936, due to the combined effects of the statuary’s weight—90 tons—together with the ravages of pollution and flaws in the marble, the Exchange replaced the marble figures with lead-coated replicas weighing only 10 tons."