All of Smith Barney’s employees at its headquarters building at 388 Greenwich Street in the Tribeca section of Manhattan--a bit uptown from the Wall Street area, but still within sight of the World Trade Center disaster--have been able to return to work this week, says a spokesperson.
Some employees started returning last Wednesday, but because the building was experiencing problems with its phone lines, the fuller population didn’t return until this week, the spokesperson says.
Another downtown SSB branch, at One New York Plaza near the Staten Island ferry terminal, is now fully up and running, the firm says. The One New York Plaza branch has 70 brokers and more than 100 employees in total.
“Those folks bravely returned to the office the Monday the market opened,” the SSB spokesperson says.
SSB had approximately 2,500 employees at 7 World Trade Center, all of whom were safely evacuated. These people, who work in the firm’s asset management, human resources, and legal departments, among others, have been relocated to various offices around NYC.
SSB did not lose any employees in the disaster, the spokesperson confirms.
“We’re slowly getting back up to speed,” she says. “People have really wonderful attitudes and there’s a lot of team work.” But it’s also hard to be within sight of the disaster. “I have my shades pulled.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Morgan Stanley reports that as of Monday, Sept. 24, the firm had been able to account for all but six of its WTC employees.
Most of the reps who worked at Morgan Stanley’s big WTC branch have been relocated to its Penn Plaza branch (at Penn Station), though some have been relocated to other sites, the spokesperson says.
The Morgan Stanley employees who had been at the WTC are now working at a number of other locations, including the firm’s four other offices in midtown Manhattan. A contingency site on Varick Street has been activated to house the firm’s back office and internet operations, and the firm is also making use of two other sites in Brooklyn and Jersey City.
