"Every financial-services firm said, 'We want Goldman here at any cost,"' said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the New York City Partnership, a business group.

As one of the nation's largest financial-services firms, Fidelity is now managing $160 billion, buoyed by its cash-flush mutual funds.

Some are one-person operations while others work within a large financial-services firm.

When financial-services firms decide to start offering on-line trading, the Internet is more and more often their choice.

Although he hopes to fill his building with banks and other financial-services firms and has received what he called "substantial amounts of inquiries," he said he had signed up no tenants.

Elsewhere in Manhattan, other financial-services firms designing new headquarters from the ground up have not suffered setbacks like Salomon's aborted plans for the Columbus Circle site.

Once considered off limits because of their limited ability to take on debt, financial-services firms may become the newest targets in private equity's buying spree.

An employee of a big financial-services firm said, "I completely disagree with the idea that 'boring' and 'bookworm' are one and the same."

Moving toward individual accounts, however, could create a huge new business for financial-services firms and set off intense competition for the right to help manage the retirement finances of nearly every working person.