Move from Bay Area to New York

This is my first post here, so my TC is 280k.

I'm considering moving from Sf to NYC and was wondering if anyone has done the same and if they regret it. No one seems to understand that there is this appeal of living in the rincon hill and being the king of the city since we work in tech. Everyone in the city literally is there to serve us.

I'm looking at new york apartments in the lower east side and just looking at the google map view the folks walking around look ghetto as hell. Typical walk outside here I can see at least a few hot asians wearing yoga clothes or jeans. There it looks like golems. I've had no issues dating chicks here and I don't understand the issues guys have dating here.

Is there an area in NYC that has that same feeling of walking out and being surrounded by successful people. I don't just mean running around aimlessly, but someone who can sit down for 7 hours straight and think hard, white board some things, design, build. SF really seems dead now so it's hard to justify paying 3500 a month even for a top floor overlooking the city.

Thoughts?

EDIT: also the thing about sf I like is people just care about work. I don't see the social justice stuff in my face all the time. It seems like new york has a lot of the artsy stuff I could care less about.