But now the London Stock Exchange has developed what it calls a "bespoke 'market open' mechanism" that features a giant, glowing orb. If you're a Chinese company shopping for a stock exchange on which to list yourself, which opening ceremony says "invest in me" better: the one with the gavel, or the one with the fantasmagoric "bespoke" digital experience?

[FT Alphaville]

Hard-pressed New Yorkers of the non-hedge-fund/trust-fund variety may find it a stretch, but London is a more expensive city than Gotham. The Art Newspaper reports “the world’s most expensive flats, four penthouses overlooking Hyde Park,” were put on the market with an asking price of $165.5 million.

Thus, you might think that New York would have an advantage in attracting rich people (most of whom are notoriously stingy) over London—but rich people are not so stingy when it comes to spending on themselves. For the new millionaires and billionaires of China, India, Russia and the Middle East, London is closer, and hang the expenses. For those who linger, London offers another competitive plus: no income tax on moneys made outside of the U.K.

The slang for such persons is “non-dom,” or a not-domiciled-in-the-U.K. individual. We don’t have that here, so non-American rich persons residing in the U.S. run a slight risk of having to pay taxes—although one would suppose that their rich American friends and business associates would steer them to lawyers and accountants who know how to minimize the risk of inadvertently and—need it be said?—reluctantly becoming a taxpayer.

Other than making New York a tax-free haven for persons with incomes over, shall we say, $30 million per annum, there’s not much that can be done. It would help if the dollar were to rally in relation to the pound and euro, but Washington, although it says it wants a strong dollar, is quietly hoping for a yet weaker one, under the misguided belief that currency manipulations can take the place of underlying economic vitality.

From an artistic point of view, the decline probably makes little difference. Except for celebrity artists, the place is too expensive for creative people, who, as we have already seen with theater and music, have begun to cluster elsewhere. Surely the younger painters have little choice but to do the same. Bohemia, always the nurturing place of the arts, must have low rents and inexpensive food as its material base. Count New York City out on that score.

The big-money people, whose only interest in the arts is how fast their paintings are appreciating, are beginning to worry that New York will be counted out on another score: They are worried that Wall Street is starting to lose out to London. Mayor Bloomberg and Charles Schumer, Wall Street’s personal Senator, issued a joint statement saying: “Unless we improve our corporate climate, we risk allowing New York to lose its pre-eminence in the global financial-services sector.”

The high cost of doing business in New York is drawing the big money away from here, if the Bloomberg-Schumer analysis is correct. For instance, they argue, “there are more than 10 federal, state and industry regulatory bodies in the U.S. The British have only one such body. Industry experts estimate that the gross financial regulatory costs to U.S. companies are 15 times higher than in Britain. Beyond cost savings, the British enjoy another advantage: While our regulatory bodies are often competing to be the toughest cop on the street, the British regulatory body seems to be more collaborative and solutions-oriented.”

Let’s break that down. The multiplicity of supervisory entities arises out of the federalism that is the center of American political theory and the Constitution. So contrary is it to our traditions that when the federal government pre-empts a field of activity to make it exclusively Washington’s, it cuts across the grain here and often sparks anger. The British unitary system is somewhat held in check by a Parliament that can, in theory at least, chuck out any government at any time with a vote of no confidence. In place of such an arrangement, we have our much-boasted-of checks and balances, of which the multitude of federal and state regulatory entities is an example. We can argue that if the system costs more, such is the price we may, in this instance, have to pay for our brand of liberty.

New York’s competitive disadvantage, according to the Mayor and the Senator, also arises from our legal system. “It may be time to revisit the best way to reduce frivolous lawsuits without eliminating meritorious ones,” they write.

Who is to say what is frivolous and what is meritorious? Big business is driven wild by class-action lawsuits—and while there are plenty of crooked lawyers who use them unethically, not to say illegally, the only thing which bursts business people’s blood vessels faster than class-action lawsuits are unions.

Another alleged cause of New York’s decreasing dominance in world finance is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed after Enron and related scandals. SOX, as the law is called, contains provisions calculated to make cooking the books harder, while making the C.E.O. and board members personally responsible for stealing from the stockholders. Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange have been crying ever since SOX’s enactment that it imposes unfair costs on American public corporations—costs that corporations listed on the London and other stock exchanges don’t have to bear.

Maybe so, but Warren Buffet, whose companies must comply with SOX, has said that it is no such drag. It may be that the rules obtaining in London make it easier to go hog wild—or even moose wild. A few weeks ago, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Roel Campos caused a minor dustup when he said that certain parts of the London security exchange were more like a “casino” than a well-regulated stock exchange.

New York’s slipping position as the unopposed center of world money may also be owing to things that get less attention when Wall Streeters meet to complain. Some say that the decreasing competency of American students in mathematics has resulted in a shortage of the skilled labor needed to keep stock exchanges and brokerage houses efficient. It is also said that foreign nationals experience so much delay, red tape, bad manners and arrogance when trying to get into New York that they take their business where people welcome them.

Lastly, people say that New York cannot continue to be the biggest froggie in the world financial puddle because investment capital is being generated in other places by other people, as has not happened before. If so, Wall Street may have fallen victim to the globalization it has preached with such zeal and success.

For the city itself, the long-held policy of making New York a one-industry town (finance, accountants and lawyers) leaves it naked to the woes that usually come in the wake of over-specialization. In the past half-century, New York has changed from a large and varied economic base to a narrow one, dependent on the prosperity of a few thousand financial wheeler-dealers. If they get it into their heads to take off in their private jets for wherever, what will happen to New York? Where will the area be with a scaled-down Wall Street? What happens then?

- Max Abelson

New York City Campaign Finance Board meets at 40 Rector Street.

Latino AIDS activists protest plans to increase rent for disabled people with AIDS on the steps of City Hall.

The Domestic Violence Project at the Urban Justice Center hosts a domestic violence awareness forum with Hiram Monserrate at the Queens Museum of Art.

Union workers and elected officials call on the German-based insurance company Allianze to stop blocking World Trade Center rebuilding in front of the German Consulate.

Indiana Congressman Mike Pence rings the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

League of Women Voters of East Nassau hosts a debate between 3rd Congressional District candidates Congressman Peter King and Legislator Dave Mejias at the Levittown Library.

People For the American Way Foundation will be hosting an event with journalist and author Joe Maguire who will discuss his recent departure from Reuters and his new book on Ann Coulter at 7:30pm in their Northeast Regional Office at 149 5th Avenue at 21st Street.

Assemblyman Jonathan Bing will be hosting his annual Senior Health Fair at Knickerbocker Plaza.

—Nicole Brydson

Vito Lopez holds a Williamsburg Community Truck Stop to protest illegal truck traffic on the corner of Metropolitan and Bushwick Avenues.

Senator Jeffrey Klein and Assemblyman George Latimer call for the passage of legislation that would increase criminal penalties for vandalizing houses of worship at St. Frances De Chantal Church in the Bronx.

Planned Parenthood endorses Andrew Cuomo at their headquarters and then endorses Hillary Clinton at the Glen Oaks Club in Old Westbury.

Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter rings the Closing Bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

The Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce hosts a Small Business Awards and Legislative Breakfast at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury.

—Nicole Brydson

What makes World Trade Center such a powerful film is the way in which it captures both the beauty of New York before the attack, the horror of Ground Zero and the selflessness of rescue workers, who fought horrendous conditions and long odds to save those trapped in the rubble. The crashing of steel, the fires that never stopped burning and the thundering sounds of flying objects combine to create a disturbing experience for the audience, but then it cannot even approach the emotional turmoil and physical pain experienced by those injured or killed at the site.

World Trade Center is really about New Yorkers, and the bridges and buildings—and public servants—that we depend on to keep this city alive. The tranquility of the Hudson River and the grace with which the George Washington Bridge links commuters in New Jersey to the office towers of New York; the packed subways running over the Manhattan Bridge before sunrise; and the cops and firefighters who protect the rest of us even when they cannot protect themselves.

Unlike so many of the television documentaries and magazine cover stories that are now surfacing as we approach the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack, this film does not focus on the hijacked planes, the words of politicians or the ongoing debate about who should build what at Ground Zero. This is a film that highlights the skills and tenaciousness of the NYPD Emergency Service Unit, the selflessness of the FDNY and the volunteers from all over the nation who came to New York to help, like the Wisconsin team portrayed in the film who grilled “the best brats you ever tasted” for their fellow rescue workers.

Sept. 11 did more than foster a new sense of connection among New Yorkers. It brought New York into direct contact with the rest of the world in a way no city had ever experienced. The film conveys this when people on every continent, of every race and ethnicity, stop in shock to watch television pictures of smoke and fire from the Twin Towers. Just as New York came to a halt, so did the world. People understood that if terrorists could blow up New York’s tallest buildings, then no place on earth was safe. As Sgt. John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) tells his fellow Port Authority cops in the film, “We’re prepared for everything—car bombs, chemical, biological, an attack from the top—but not this. Not for something this size. There’s no plan; we didn’t make it.”

A disaster like 9/11 doesn’t fade away. It has become part of the fabric of this city. In fact, it’s impossible not to feel the pervasive impact of the attacks on daily life in the city. The police cars stationed at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge; the harbor patrol boats next to the U.N. in the East River; the cluster of police assigned to the entrances of the Midtown Tunnel; the barriers surrounding the New York Stock Exchange; the massive planters positioned in front of midtown office buildings to prevent truck bombs; the mandatory photo ID to enter an office building; the anxious look when a fire engine comes blaring down the street; the nervous tension when the subway P.A. system announces that there is a “police investigation” at the next station.

And, of course, the absence of the Twin Towers, once visible throughout the region.

So many New York rituals have been generated by the attacks that we already take them for granted. The American flag flies from buildings that prior to Sept. 11 never had a flagpole; baseball fans sing “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch; and no public event is held without a search of bags and packages. At firehouses in most neighborhoods, there are plaques and shrines to honor the firefighters who died in the rescue efforts.

What have we learned, five years after the most deadly attack by a foreign enemy on American soil? The film tells us that in times of stress, New York transforms itself from a city of strangers into a gigantic community mobilized to help those in greatest need. No film has ever done a better job telling that truth about this city and its people.

Most of what he says is hard to understand out of context, just one reason this won't be going into an attack ad anytime soon, but it sounds like he's calling an element of the case against Langone and Grasso "totally offensive" and referring to "the politicized nature of prosecutorial activity" in the case of "an Attorney General who's actually running for Governor."

"In 'The City Politic: The Suozzi-Spitzer Showdown'...the head of the New York Stock Exchange compensation committee that gave final approval to the 139.5 million exit package for Richard Grasso should have been identified as Carl McCall, not Ken Langone."

Suozzi said his "New York a United State" tour would give him a chance to "travel throughout the state and talk about management, fiscal discipline, and government reform" as well as "my experience at solving complex governmental problems" and the problems of various New Yorkers. And he said that he'd like to start talking about the issues right away, offering a general framework that you find the money to cut taxes, spend more on schools, upstate jobs, and housing, by cutting Medicaid fraud.

Then we talked some politics.

Suozzi said he wasn't worried about his outsider status. (Being an official maverick has got to be the next best thing to having lots of support among insiders!)

"I've always been in a position where I had to run against the establishment," he said. "It gives me some independence to focus on government reform and change and solving problems without the baggage of the establishment holding me back."

He also said he expects state party leaders to try to prevent him from getting on the ballot. "I expect that. It makes it tougher."

As for Eliot, no scorched earth here.

"I have nothing bad to say about Eliot Spitzer. He deserves the reputation he enjoys." As? "As one of the top Attorney Generals in the country."

But what about that little case involving one of your constituents, a Mr., um, Langone?

"That's not my province.... I haven't read any papers or anything like that.... Ken Langone is a Nassau County resident who supported me for my position as County Executive and has offered to support me."

He also put a novel, but sharp, spin on Langone's money.

"He doesn't want anything from me as far as government goes," Suozzi said.

Just to kill Eliot, right? "Yeah," he chuckled, before continuing:

"He just wants me to win and do a good job. In a way, that's actually liberating. I'd rather have that kind of support than support from lobbyists who want me to help their clients."

What about Dick Grasso's $139.5 million payday?

"It seems like a tremendous amount of money, but that's a private sector company.... The interesting thing about it is the courts will have to decide what's appropriate here. It would be great if that case could be resolved as quickly as possible.... If Eliot wins the case, the money will go back to the millionaires who own the New York Stock Exchange anyway."

Would he like to debate Spitzer?

"Debates are great for voters. The more the better."

(Earlier today, I'd asked Eliot about debating Suozzi. "I've always believed debates are part of a healthy Democratic process and I look forward to them," Spitzer said, without committing more specifically.)

I also asked Suozzi about some of the problems in his own administration, including one Deputy County Executive indicted and another who left under a cloud in a timesheet scandal.

"Every large organization has problems and you've got to judge people based on how they address those problems," he said. "We now have a Deputy County Executive for Compliance. It was a very difficult, but a very important, learning experience."

I'd come early, somehow thinking I might be alone there. I was looking for some reminder of what I'd seen a year before. But as the ceremony and the speeches and the solemn roll call of the dead began, I found little to connect with.

I went to Ground Zero last year on the night of Sept. 12, sneaking in behind police lines at dusk to report on the scene -and utterly unprepared for the destruction I saw. I stood at the base of mountains of hissing, twisted metal; I watched the frenzied men digging for bodies in a burning pile of rubble seven stories deep; I talked with the rescuers and took pages of notes; and I lugged cartons of water bottles out to the firefighters on the debris pile.

But I didn't feel like I belonged there. During the night, I watched a group of cops toss the bag of another reporter and threaten him with arrest. By the time I left, at dawn the next morning, my notes were hidden under my shirt.

I hadn't really wanted to leave-but once I did, it seemed impossible to return. Leaving so soon, staying among the rescuers in the rubble for only a few hours, I had only unformed and incomplete impressions. Still, the memories were so vivid that I was reluctant to return to the site, knowing that what I had seen was vanishing daily by the truckload. Wanting to move on, I instead found myself clinging to a fast-disappearing image.

More and more, I wished I'd stayed.

When I returned on a December night four months later to work the food lines with the Salvation Army, the site was already transformed into a construction zone teeming with electricians, welders and engineers. I looked for a familiar face; I was thinking about someone I'd met that first night who did stay, and I wondered how she was doing.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Abby Lindsay was pulled out from beneath the towers just in time. A cop named Nick with a gray mustache had found her huddled under two chairs propped against each other like a teepee, where she thought she wouldn't be killed by the falling towers. He grabbed her and told her to run.

As it turned out, Abby didn't go far. The next day, she had returned to Ground Zero and was busy behind a table of hot trays, feeding the firefighters. Her 5-foot-1 frame was tiny beside the men. She had outrun death by a few seconds-a matter of yards-and she had not staggered out of the haze looking for home or the nearest hospital. Instead, she'd shrugged off her cuts and scrapes and, less than 24 hours later, was a seasoned volunteer with a solid line on the surest place to find a flashlight, a spare sweatshirt, a carton of cigarettes. But with the dirt streaking her round cheeks, and wearing a pair of borrowed shorts that came to her ankles, she looked less like a gritty rescue worker than a child caught in a war zone.

"I'm not leaving till this is over," she told me. Behind the genial smile, her eyes were slightly wild.

She said she was 34 years old and an executive assistant in human resources for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, an architectural firm whose offices were nearby, across the street from the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. The firm had lost one employee in the towers on Sept. 11, a Russian architect named Arkady Zaltsman, but Abby didn't know that yet. The last I saw of Abby that night, she'd slung an arm around the waist of a fatigued rescue worker and was leading him to a metal folding chair in the triage area.

A year later, I decided to look her up and see how she was doing. We met for lunch on a blustery day at a restaurant on the North Cove Yacht Harbor. A lunchtime crowd mingled with men in hard hats hammering in new panes of glass on the Winter Garden's glass atrium.

Abby seemed older now, closer to her actual age. Her round face was still shaped like a doll's, her blond hair still cut in the same flouncing pageboy, but there was a new sharpness to her, a new gauntness in her cheeks.

Her eyes were the most changed-more restrained-and when she started talking about her experience on Sept. 11, she started to cry and then stopped herself.

When the planes hit, Abby's colleagues were milling around, confused-nobody seemed to know what to do. Abby wanted to help. She left her office and walked to the Millenium Hotel right in front of the World Trade Center. "I remember seeing a woman lying on a gurney with an oxygen tank … it looked like her socks were melted to her feet," she recalled. "We went into the lobby of the hotel and pulled ottoman chairs out. People were so traumatized they just wanted to sit."

Then Abby heard an explosion directly overhead and looked up to see a plume of smoke. Everyone around her started running, and she was afraid of getting trampled. So she pulled two chairs over her head, hoping to ride out the storm.

When Officer Nick arrived, "I just felt his arm," she said. "I thought I was going to die of suffocation." He led her to safety and disappeared. As the dust settled, Abby looked around at the devastation and the bodies and decided she wasn't going anywhere.

She said she felt guilty when she left Ground Zero after four days. While she was working there, she didn't have time to think about nearly dying. "I used to have depression a long time ago-bad depression," she told me. "I fought my way out of it, but I still have to fight."

Abby said that she, too, had wanted to go back to Ground Zero once she finally did leave.

Not long after she returned to her office, Abby said, she was asked to process the life-insurance policy of the single Skidmore, Owings employee who had died on Sept. 11, Arkady Zaltsman. For months, she spoke regularly with Arkady's widow over the phone, helping to settle his affairs, sometimes just lending an ear. When no one was home, she listened to Arkady's voice greeting her on the answering machine, and it comforted her.

I'd called Abby hoping that she would lead me back to find the end of a story, to make some sense of an intense and tragic night. But Abby, I found, could no better re-create where we'd been than I could.

By helping Arkady's widow, however, Abby had found a way to move on without losing what she'd seen at Ground Zero. "I realized he was one of those bodies in the rubble when I was there," she said. She still calls the Zaltsman family. It makes her feel less guilty about leaving. It's enough, she said, except for one thing.

She still hasn't found Officer Nick to thank him.