"Our talent is our most competitive advantage," Lieber said in his opening remarks at the well-attended ULI event. "The speed at which New York City recovers is going to be determined by the magnitude, depth and breadth of talent that we have here."

It's a talent pool that extends well beyond the financial services industry, Lieber said. "We have to do more to get the other sectors to make a contribution to the city."

Lieber charted several of the moves the Bloomberg administration is making to encourage those sectors. Among them is a series of roundtables with key figures from media, life sciences, high tech, academia and green industry, with the idea of developing initiatives that will spur these industries to grow here as opposed to going elsewhere. The city is also working with commercial property owners on a program to set aside underutilized class A and B offices for use as incubator space by start-up ventures.