The city should give up wasting time on banks and bankers and focus more on growing it's tech sector. Otherwise you're never going to find a Google, FB or Apple HQ in Manhattan.
"Stop wasting money on the industry I'm not in, and start focusing on me!"
Why would they want one?
I know we think that the tech sector is the be-all and end-all of everything on HN, but it ain't. It's one sector among many. It's one of the most lucrative sectors, it's true... but then again so is finance, and finance is what NYC happens to already be good at.
The big danger to NYC's economy is that it's too concentrated on a couple of sectors -- but the solution is more of everything, not just more of one thing. On the other hand, the financial sector has already crashed, and it didn't turn New York into Detroit, so I guess that's not too dangerous after all.
Ultimately I don't think New York City is a particularly good place for an Apple/Google HQ. These companies have big open-space office parks, rather than monolithic skyscrapers, for a reason. Several reasons, probably, including ease of extension, the tastes of their employees, the need to get a lot of stuff in and out, et cetera.
http://mashable.com/2010/12/03/google-manhattan-1-9-billion/
Granted, it's not the headquarters, but still.
"The city should give up wasting time on banks and bankers"
These two sentences do not jive.