You'd ride a scooter on the streets of NYC?
I'd say you're nuts. Either get an honest-to-goodness motorcycle or pedal powered (bike).
With a motorcycle, you'll get all the benefits of good mpg, maneuverability, ability to park basically anywhere, dirt-cheap insurance, etc. AND you can run at least as quickly as traffic. I imagine on a scooter you have the penalty of being just as invisible (or more so) and a sitting duck (i.e. unable to accelerate out of a problem).
A scooter will get "squeezed" to the right-hand shoulder by drivers refusing to acknowledge you as a "real vehicle". This is probably the worst place to be when there are parked cars alongside the curb (as is usually the case on urban streets). All it takes is one idiot to fling their door open and you're going to get launched (a friend of mine had this happen on his road bicycle a while back and ended up losing his six front teeth in the resulting "rapid deceleration", along with a concussion and a busted bike). Either that or one inattentive fool pulling out of their spot without looking and you can quickly find yourself in a "tunnel" made of very solid metal vehicles that's now closed ahead of you. Not a good situation.
The ways around this are to get a motorcycle (since you can travel at or faster than traffic, you won't get "squeezed" onto the shoulder against the parked cars with vehicles in the R/H lane passing you (also a risk of clipping you with a side-view mirror, which I've had happen to me on a bicycle), or to get a bicycle and either ride on the sidewalk if possible (technically illegal, but in some places you can do it without incident if the walks are wide and not many pedestrians) or "hog the lane" and deal with the pissed off drivers.
Personally I find a bicycle preferable because you're more manuverable, but it also might or might not be an option for you at work (showers? distance involved? carrying capacity?)
Best of luck. The elites are cool scooters but for an urban setting (your sig says Brooklyn) I'd think they're suicide.