While I'm not going to dispute your larger point, I do want to point out that New York was
not originally the shipping capital of the colonies; Philadelphia was. New York City only became the center of trade that it was for so many years after constructing the Erie Canal, allowing trade to easily reach into the Great Lakes and the center of the continent. Many of New York's subsequent advantages (such as the dominance of the NYSE as the various exchanges consolidated) stem from this.
Likewise, California has a great climate for many types of agriculture precisely because it gets so little rain in the Central Valley; farmers can irrigate their crops to the ideal amount water at each point in their lifespan, while farmers elsewhere in the country are subject to the whims of nature. Integral to California's success in agriculture, then, is their investment in irrigation.
Again, I don't mean to dispute your core points, but while it's good to be lucky, investments also compound. California and New York have both historically invested in their economies through massive public works.