By PATRICK McGEEHAN

Early last year, New York political leaders sounded the alarm that the city was in danger of losing its status as the world’s pre-eminent financial hub to London. And that was before one of the biggest investment banks on Wall Street, Bear Stearns, collapsed and a second, Lehman Brothers, was forced to seek bankruptcy protection.
Now New York officials and economists are worrying more about the future of the city’s financial sector. It will surely remain a center of global finance after the current crisis, they say, but its days as the clear leader may be ending.
“This is the worst financial-services crisis of our lifetime,” and Wall Street is at its center, said Robert N. Sloan, who heads financial-services executive recruiting at Egon Zehnder International in Manhattan. “You have major firms that have imploded or are at risk of imploding. It is a deconstruction - and a reconstruction to follow - of the financial-services industry as we know it.”
Many analysts point out that the resources of big financial companies were migrating toward London well before the current crisis. To capitalize on the rapid growth in Asia, the banks reoriented themselves toward London, which became “the springboard to conducting business looking east,” Mr. Sloan said.
The trans-Atlantic rivalry became more heated after 2005, when companies making their first sale of stock raised more money in London than in New York. Although that shift may have been only temporary, it spurred American officials to call for regulatory changes to make Wall Street more attractive to foreign companies seeking to raise money.
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Senator Charles E. Schumer, citing a study conducted at their direction by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, argued that “if we do nothing within 10 years, while we will remain a leading regional financial center, we will no longer be the financial capital of the world.”
In a report this month, the World Economic Forum ranked the United States just barely ahead of Britain in an assessment of global financial development. It ranked the United States first for the size and efficiency of its banks, but second to Britain in investment banks, brokerage firms and other financial companies.
London’s ascendance threatens more than egos in New York. Wall Street is regarded as the most important sector of the city’s economy. This year, banks and brokerage firms have announced 83,000 job cuts worldwide, and most of those were in New York.
How much of New York’s loss will be London’s gain - or Hong Kong’s or Dubai’s - is a sensitive topic with the city’s officials and business leaders.
Foreign investors may shy away from investing in American companies and markets, said Kathryn S. Wylde, the chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, an association of large employers. She was quick to add, however, that global markets were linked and that the big Wall Street firms were also some of the biggest in other countries.
“It’s important to remember that Lehman is a London firm as well,” Ms. Wylde said. “This stuff hurts London just like it hurts New York.”