Panicked customers in the Flatiron District scrambled on Friday morning.
The NYPD responded to a 911 call from employees at a bank branch on Park Avenue South because upset clients showed up to pull their cash out. It was the same in California.
"All our money is in the bank. I don't know, however, we're going to do payroll. I don't know what we're gonna do now," said Sam Pourmojib.
"I hope we get most of it back, but it's definitely a concern," added Sarika Bajaj.
It is the biggest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis. Regulators on Friday morning shut down and seized the assets of the bank - a go-to lender in the tech industry.
High-interest rates left many with less cash on hand, forcing them to withdraw more to make their expenses.
Panic spread on Wall Street in just 48 hours. The bank stock plunged as customers started pulling their money out.
However, experts say this is not an economy-wide problem.
"We are in a fundamentally different position that with the reforms of the global financial crisis of 2007, 2008, we put in place stress tests and other tools that regulators have to provide more resilience to our banking system," said White House Economic Advisor Cecilia Rouse.
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