Wall Street may be hurting, but a banker or a trader can now pick up a silk scarf, a diamond necklace, or even a BMW on a lunch break—something that wasn't so easy during past boom times.

What was once a barren business district has been enlivened by some of the same high-end brands that anchor the famous retail stretches of upper Fifth and Madison avenues. Hermès, Thomas Pink, and Tiffany & Co. all opened locations in the financial district last year, while Canali, Tumi, and Whole Foods are set to arrive in 2008.

The timing of this retailing invasion may seem unfortunate given that banks have been retrenching and cutting tens of thousands of jobs amid a credit crunch. Bonuses, which can account for most of a professional's compensation, will certainly be substantially reduced at the end of the year.

But the influx also shows how much Lower Manhattan has changed, becoming more residential and less dependent on the financial services industry.

"I'm not really concerned with the state of Wall Street," says Christina Minardi, president of Whole Foods–Northeast Region, which has a new store at 270 Greenwich Street. "There's so much new construction in the area, and the economy doesn't seem to be hurting our New York stores so far."

By the end of this year, the residential population of the area south of Chambers Street will have doubled from 2003 levels to 58,000 residents, according to the Alliance for Downtown New York.

Twenty-one new residential buildings opened in 2007, and 35 more projects are in the works.

Luxury units dominate the building pipeline as the area's occupants get older and wealthier. The median income for Lower Manhattan residents has increased 47 percent since 2004, to $163,000, and is now nearly three times greater than the median Manhattan household income.

Liz Berger, the Downtown Alliance's director, says that Tiffany & Co. and Hermès are doing "very well."

"We're an increasingly growing residential market and predominantly luxury market," she says. "Our challenge now is getting residents to live their lives and do their shopping in Lower Manhattan."

And while firms are cutting jobs, some are also expanding their presence downtown. When completed, the new World Trade Center towers, a new Goldman Sachs headquarters, and a J.P. Morgan Chase office tower are expected to add 13 percent to the area's workforce.

An influx of marketing, law, and creative-services firms, meanwhile, has made the neighborhood more diverse. While financial services accounted for 47 percent of employment in 1993, that number was down to 30 percent at the end of 2006.

Robert Cohen, an executive vice president at Robert K. Futterman & Associates, a retail brokerage company, estimates that retail rents in prime retail areas of Lower Manhattan—like those on Wall and Broad streets—have climbed in recent years from $100 to between $250 and $400 per square foot but will probably hold there for the time being.  

That's still a bargain compared with average 2007 retail rents per square foot on upper Fifth Avenue of $1,500 and Madison Avenue of $1,091, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Yet it would still seem to be bad timing to be opening a luxury store on Wall Street.

Merrill Lynch, the largest private-sector employer in Lower Manhattan, announced 3,000 layoffs worldwide last week. Citigroup also said that it would cut 9,000 jobs worldwide, adding to the 4,000 layoffs announced earlier this year. A number of those cuts will be jobs in Lower Manhattan. Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley all operate offices downtown and have announced significant job cuts as well.

And for those left standing at the various firms, 2008 bonus figures are likely to be paltry in comparison with record-breaking sums in recent years.

On a recent weekday afternoon, traffic in the Thomas Pink and Tiffany stores on Wall Street was sluggish before picking up some steam during the postwork rush. 

A salesperson at Pink says that the store does its biggest business in the morning, replacing forgotten ties or stained shirts for the harried executives in the area; a Tiffany employee said that the jeweler has found more traction at lunchtime and in the evening and has adjusted store hours accordingly.

"If you rented a space four or five months ago at $400 per square foot on Wall Street, you might be second-guessing it," Cohen says.

He says that the neighborhood's growing population will help retailers but acknowledges that "given the layoffs and nervousness relating to financial markets, it continues to be a market that many people are watching."