No. 51 Astor is being looked at by tech companies. 1 WTC up to this point is largely occupied by a publishing and a law firm. Hudson Yards South's anchor tenant makes purses, among other stuff I've been told. 250 W 55th is almost entirely leased, and it's all law firms. Plus you have L'Oreal looking at enough space to anchor, and get 3 WTC built, 500K for a make up company! (I know they won't move there but just an indication of how much space that is), Viacom and News Corp both none financial firms looking for huge amounts of space, 1M SF each.
Financial service companies have traditionally driven new office construction in the past, but as has been posted in the Hudson Yards thread, all sorts of companies, from all different types of industries are looking for new space because almost 90% of commercial square feet in Manhattan predates 1970,
source. That is an incredible statistic.
I met with a woman who works at Studley this morning, and she has worked on the Time Warner account, a media company that is reevaluating it's more than 4 MILLION SF NY portfolio, that's almost one entire of the original twin towers, and they're also managing Jones Day which is another law firm looking for 400K worth of square feet, and she hinted at some other names and locations they're looking at specifically but nothing that wouldn't surprise someone on this site. Plus Milbank is getting booted from the JP building downtown and needs 250K sf.
Plus, your assertion that financial firms won't move isn't well founded either. Credit Suisse is actively looking at new space with CBRE, and Citi is looking around too. There is a lot of natural pent up demand for new space, the vacancy rate is falling, and rents are rising. These companies are smart, they know that at places like Hudson Yards, MW, and the WTC they can get huge blocks of office space (which it's important to understand is very rare in Manhattan) at discounted prices because of tax credits, among other things so they actually save money in the future by signing leases now and get into one of those new buildings instead of waiting until their lease expires in 2015 or 2018 when the economy will probably be better, and rents will be higher.
That was a bit of a rant, I had a long day so I apologize, and don't take it personally but what you said is just false.