Of course, there is the possible awkwardness of a man used to having someone light his cigar for him suddenly finding himself on the other end of the match. But Mr. Greenhouse said he was used to riches-to-rags sorts crossing his threshold: “Divorcees coming in who were married to multimillionaires. All of a sudden they need to go to work and they come to us looking for a personal assistant job: ‘Oh, I know about this because I’ve had the rich lifestyle myself. I know how to take care of rich people’s affairs.’

Image Anthony Cee, at the Three Little Indians Cigar Shop at Florios in Little Italy, says Wall Streeters could sell cigars, but there are no openings. Credit... Michael Appleton for The New York Times

“I’ve had people that come from all sorts of career paths and all of a sudden they want to be a butler,” he added. Speaking of cigars:

Sell cigars. Great idea, said Anthony Cee, manager at Florio’s in Little Italy, which contains the Three Little Indians Cigar Shop. The image of the Wall Street big shot, the Gordon Gekko type, is exactly what his store likes to project.

“Most of them are cigar smokers, so the education is there,” he said. “If you smoke cigars, I would say frequently you know a little bit about cigars. Professionalism is everything. ‘Dress to impress,’ that’s my motto.” One little problem: no one is buying cigars.

“We have no openings at all,” Mr. Cee said. “Different times, we help everybody. We had a lot of regulars who are out of work right now.”

Shred documents. No one knows sensitive paperwork like a Wall Street veteran. Just ask Al Vari, a salesman with Code Shred, whose service area includes Lower Manhattan.

“I spent 25 years on Wall Street, and now I’m in the shredding industry with two friends of mine,” he said. “It’s not an easy business. It’s a service industry. It’s a trucking company. You send out trucks to shred documents for people who have to shred them by law, or are, in a sense, paranoid.” Mr. Vari warned, however, that this is not a career for a person who has pushed a pencil all his life. “It’s done by a truck driver,” he said. “It’s a labor job.” He considered a possible Wall Street applicant. “These guys, the worst thing that’s happened to them is lead poisoning or deteriorated livers.”

Someone, however, does have to sell the service. “To be an outside salesman, to have contacts in the industries, they could probably make a living,” Mr. Vari said. “Not what they were making on Wall Street though, I’ll tell you that.”