The drone of generators fills the silence of lower Manhattan ona weekday afternoon. A newsstand is open at the corner of Wall andWater streets, its main customers now cleanup crews rather thanbankers, lawyers and other financial district office workers.

Such is the scene downtown, where damage from Hurricane Sandy iskeeping properties empty more than a week after the storm struck.There are 445 office and residential properties in the area thatthe city determined may be uninhabitable even while they may haveno structural damage. Almost 33 percent of the 101 million squarefeet (9.4 million square meters) of lower Manhattan office spacewas out of operation as of Nov. 7, according to brokerage JonesLang LaSalle Inc.

“We have water in basically every building downtown,” saidJoseph Moinian, who owns and manages more than 4 million squarefeet of commercial and residential space in the area.