Legal Question in Business Law in California

You'd be best off asking this as a New York question insofar as reviving the NY corporation; LawGuru's NY lawyers would be better equipped to express opinions. However, I'd speculate that you'll be better off starting anew rather than (probably) having to pay years of annual fees and filing years of tax returns to catch up. I've started about a half dozen corporations (in CA and NV) for my own business projects over the last 30 years or so, and have simply abandoned them when the business concepts never came to fruition.

The only reason I might disagree with Mr. Whipple is if you put any assets in the corporation that you still need in order to resume doing business. You don't want the tax authorities of the 2001 corporation's state to get wind of you resuming business and try to reach the new business' assets. If the old corporation really just evaporated, though, I agree that revival would serve no purpose and you are better off forming a new corporation here.