New Jersey is being assaulted by suddenly space hungry companies, dislocated from their Downtown offices.

Others are sniffing around Westchester, Connecticut and, to a lesser extent, Long Island. For the moment, Brooklyn has been dissed.

The grab for 22 million square feet of out-of-town space identified by Grubb & Ellis also has city officials worrying that Downtown will be abandoned for the nurturing, safe-looking and sanitarium-like quiet on some of the corporate campuses.

James S. Meiskin, president of the tenant relocation firm Plymouth Partners, thinks companies will leave - perhaps for the short term - and then never look back.

That's why Sen. Chuck Schumer is meeting with the Real Estate Board of New York on Monday to drum up a safe-city, safe skies message to keep companies from abandoning Downtown forever.

Meanwhile, it's primarily Jersey's big new office towers that are hooking the fastest tenants.

"We got calls for Newport," said LeFrak Organization Chairman Samuel LeFrak about his 600-acre project on the Jersey shoreline that already is home to several major corporations. "They are all desperate." LeFrak is in the process of constructing more towers, but current ones are all spoken for.

Seena Stein, president of the Jersey-based Newmark Partners, said there are lines forming for the remaining 2 million square feet of Jersey's vacant Class A space — at prices that come in under $30 a foot, a far cry from Manhattan's $75 tab for new construction.

"When this quarter ends, it will be mind boggling," Stein said of the rush from carnage.

American Express is glomming several large hunks, sources said, including both sublease and direct space. These may include a sublease from Lucent for 317,040 square feet at 5 Woodhollow Drive in Parsippany, and more at Ten Exchange Place, which had about 50,000 square feet available.

Another 150,000 square feet in Short Hills at 103 JFK Parkway, owned by Reckson, was also being courted by American Express and others, while a Datek sublease at the Hartz-owned 70 Hudson in Jersey City for 150,000 square feet that already has its raised floors installed was presumed to be won by Lehman Bros. leaving Solomon Smith Barney in the lurch.

Henegan Construction was running crews 24 hours a day to get a trading company wired into 400,000 square feet in New Jersey by the time the opening bell rings on Monday morning.

"It's time to start the healing," Maureen Henegan said.

In Westchester, there are a number of buildings that are ready to go," said John McCarthy of McCarthy-O'Callaghan Company.