Wall Streeters Airlifted to Safety

Jersey City back offices are apparently passe in this post-Sept. 11th world. Wall Street banks are looking further west, like northeastern Pennsylvania, which PA officials and private firms are trying to turn into a center of redundant offices and data banks in case catastrophe strikes Manhattan again. The region's promoters are calling it Wall Street West, and point to a $15 million grant from the Feds as evidence that they have got the right stuff (except, apparently, a high-speed fiber connection and a trained workforce).

The real fun will start Tuesday, when several "officers and senior business continuity executives of leading Wall Street firms" will take helicopters to a Delaware Valley hotel to get the sales pitch, according to a press advisory.

Meanwhile, it seems like a pretty decent economic development scheme as schemes go. Has someone thought of this for upstate New York?

-Matthew Schuerman