The SEC has reopened its Northeast Regional office. The original offices were destroyed during the tragic events of September 11.

The new home for the office is in the historic Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan, keeping the SEC in the heart of the financial district. The SEC’s employees have worked from several locations, including the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Brooklyn and Manhattan, since they all were safelyevacuated prior to the collapse of 7 World Trade Center.

SEC chairman Harvey Pitt and Commissioners Isaac Hunt and Laura Unger welcomed returning staffers to their new office. New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso, Nasdaq CEO Hardwick Simmons, American Stock Exchange chairman and CEO Salvatore Sodano, U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of New York Mary Jo White, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Alan Vinegrad, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert Khuzami and Eric Corngold also attended the reopening.

The SEC says that its New York-based staff are diligently reconstructing records to ensure that no case or investigation will be lost because of the temporary disruption.

“By their efforts since the tragedy, and through their ongoing commitment to the protection of our capital markets and individual investors, the employees of our New York office have shown the world that we will not waver from our duties even in the face of the most enormous physical and emotional obstacles. We owe each of them a tremendous debt of gratitude; they are genuine heroes,” chairman Pitt said.