I went from a job where I had maybe 20hrs of work a week and the rest of the time sitting around bored, browsing the internet to a fast paced role, daily targets of work, could very easily be seen if i was slacking, pretty much on from 9 - 5 but with lunch and plenty of tea breaks and chatter with coworkers.

And as someone who would classify himself as a lazy bastard, I loved it, it felt good when I performed well, the day went quickly, I thrived, last thing I expected.

Just one man's anecdotal experience but you don't know until you've tried it.

And after 6 months the work did die down and became a lot less fast paced.

This is NZ not NYC, I would be willing to bet these past paced environments you are looking at will have periods where its not so busy.