Writer Steven D. Cuozzo says Florida State sucks, and bets that New Yorkers who had moved there will all be back in five years. Targeting Jacksonville, Miami and Orlando, the 72-year-old newspaper editor, restaurant critic, real estate columnist, and op-ed contributor for the New York Post says all New Yorkers living in Florida State will be sorry.
As reported by The Post, a record 61,728 New Yorkers fled to the Sunshine State in 2021, a number likely to rise in 2022. Cuozzo feels sorry for New Yorkers who may have moved to Florida because of lower taxes, schools without masks, and no shoebox-size apartments that cost more to rent than it took to build Hudson Yards.
You’ll all be sorry, Cuozzo wrote in an NYPost article titled ‘What every New Yorker moving to Florida should know’. As Jason Mudrick, head of Madison Avenue-based Mudrick Capital Management, put it, “The main problem with moving to Florida is that you have to live in Florida.”
Cuozzo, citing financial news site Risk Market News, warns that these companies are nuts to set foot in a state “increasingly beset by tropical cyclones and flooding.”
Citing a 2020 article from The Yale School of the Environment, the real estate columnist stated the “inescapable truth about life in South Florida: This low-lying region is set to be swallowed by the sea.”
Cuozzo claims Michael Bordenaro, a successful Miami Beach real estate broker and consultant, told him that virtually half of his clients who migrated to Florida State gave up on their place in the sun within five years. “One reason: astronomically priced wind and flood insurance, among other surprises that can quickly wipe out any tax benefits you think you’re about to enjoy,” he said
“Pay attention when a guy who makes his living selling homes in Florida warns on his YouTube channel against buying homes in that state,” Cuozzo said.
Cuozzo referenced a Florida male model who was caught in March masturbating for all to see at a Starbucks on Collins Avenue and 29th Street.
I’ve been to that Starbucks. The perp likely was just trying to pass the time waiting for bored baristas, who once took 20 minutes to make my latte, to complete his order.
He says New York apartment residents worry that a new building will block their river or park views, whereas a new high-rise can wipe out the entire ocean in South Florida. Cuozzo claims it happened to one of his friends who believed the vista he enjoyed from the tip of South Beach was safe — until a monstrous skyscraper somehow rose on a “protected” sliver of land.
As for supposedly ubiquitous sunshine — my friends spend much of their time plotting escapes from rainy summers when it’s “like living inside a wet sock” and from the six months every year under hurricane watch.
New York has Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and the greatest collection of museums anywhere, within walking distance of each other. Florida’s scattered, B-list cultural resources include the New World Symphony and the Palm Beach Opera, no threats to our Philharmonic or Met.
Florida’s true cultural icon is Mickey Mouse. The state let Disney rule a precious chunk of Orlando in the manner of an imperial conqueror for a half-century. Gov. Ron DeSantis finally yanked the Mouse’s “special tax district” when Disney whined over a law forbidding “transgender education” for kindergarten-to-third-grade pupils.
But court challenges are planned. Disney could still win. This is Florida, after all — the Weird-But-True capital of America.
Only in Florida must you go north to go south. For the Blue State crowd downstate, where nary a southern accent is to be heard, life’s an Upper West Side or brownstone Brooklyn wine-and-cheese party. “Arrest Trump” is on many a tongue. In the state’s swampy, Red State midsection and panhandle, they’d happily tune-in to a Confederacy Network if one were to spring up. And, everywhere, the wild kingdom rules.
A Palm Coast woman claimed she saw a baby dinosaur in her backyard last year and posted a video to “prove” it. A recent genius visitor to the Jacksonville Zoo had his wrist bloodied when he stuck his arm into the jaguar cage. A resident of central-state Odessa was confronted by an 8-foot-long alligator on his doorstep a few weeks ago.
The state’s 1.3 million gators, it should be noted, are only officially considered a “nuisance” if they’re at least 4-feet long. If you move to Florida, bring a tape measure — and check your brain at the airport.
