Lower Manhattan is one of the fastest-growing neighborhoods in the city, the Wall Street Journal reported. Once considered a purely commercial district, abandoned come closing time, some 56,000 people now live south of Chambers Street, double the number of residents than in 2001.
“After Sept. 11, downtown became a residential community,” said Tom Goodkind, a 22-year resident of Battery Park City. “It was odd.”
Government incentives have been an important strategy for keeping residents and drawing new ones to the Financial District, Goodkind said, as well as the ever-increasing pool of career opportunities in the area.
A report produced by pro-business group the Alliance for Downtown New York shows that Lower Manhattan has recovered almost all the jobs it lost after the 2001 attacks.
Lower Manhattan lost 754 companies and 65,000 jobs in the first two years after Sept. 11. Now there are some 309,500 people working downtown, about 4 percent fewer than before the attacks, the Journal said.
“There was a tremendous loss of community,” said Elizabeth Berger, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York. “The people that worked here and lived here never doubted that they would come back.” [WSJ]