"Could a lease by one of the world's high-fashion retailers provide the long-awaited key to unlocking Wall Street's perennial retail freeze, and beyond that, to thawing out the district's commercial cold spell?
Years before the attacks of 9/11 destroyed the popular retail concourse at the World Trade Center, boosters of downtown Manhattan had pushed hard, but with little success, to bring better, bigger and more exciting stores to the Financial District. The scarcity of restaurants and high-quality shopping outlets hurt both office and residential growth. As financial services firms migrated to Midtown Manhattan and to the World Financial Center, with its self-contained restaurants and shopping, the 9-to-5 quality of street life has been exacerbated by the absence of residents in the historic Wall Street core. The non-shopping environment has been a major obstacle to transforming the area into a 24/7 urban CBD."
Thanks to Peter Slatin
