Wall Street West

Other major financial firms followed shortly after with National Westminster Bank of London building its domestic subsidiary there.

Office space in Jersey City's waterfront became boom again due to its proximity to Lower Manhattan and the ferry services which were not affected by the attacks.

[13] By the end of September 2001, ten of the largest 18 firms from the World Trade Center area including American Express and Deutsche Bank moved some of their operations to Jersey City.

[16] Currently, "Wall Street West" employment contributes to one-third of the private sector jobs in Jersey City.

In 2006, Governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, announced the creation of "Wall Street West" initiative to attract 20 potential Wall Street firms to move their backup facilities to Northeastern Pennsylvania in nine counties: Northampton, Berks, Monroe, Carbon, Pike, Wayne, Luzerne and Lackawanna.

He also pledged to invest in office space construction, infrastructure improvement and installation of fiber optic cable from New York City to the region.

The region was chosen as it was still within 125 miles (201 km) from Manhattan which was considered far enough to sustain a major disaster but still within the range of instantaneous data transmission via fiber optics.

[20] However, by June 2008, the initiative was unable to attract any Wall Street firm to the region with an exception of one financial services related company.

A company which hosted compliance solutions for financial services opened its new data center in the region with 10 job creation.

[21] Without a commitment from financial services companies, the decision was made in 2009 to expand the Wall Street West mission to include healthcare, advanced materials and diversified manufacturing, and logistics and transportation industries.

The Financial District has been expanded to cover the triangular area east of Grant Avenue, south of Washington Street, west of the Embarcadero.

[26][27][28] Significantly high levels of crime and homelessness have become more prominent features of the financial district and neighboring Union Square.

[29] Theories advanced range from crime, drugs, and homelessness, to the West Coast's and particularly San Francisco's challenge to remain a relevant commercial and financial center given its relative geographic isolation from other North American commercial centers in a era of increasingly ubiquitous e-commerce.

[36] By the early 1980s, partly due to bank mergers and consolidations, many buildings were empty and the Spring Street showed no sign of its past as one of the financial centers.