Swaggeringly self-assured, New York City is an indomitable force. This mega metropolis, immortalised on the silver screen countless times, has bags of assets and knows how to flaunt them: steel skyscrapers squeezed together like blades of grass, sandy beaches, bold Broadway plays, good grub, grand galleries, and paths crisscrossing Central Park’s vast meadows, hills and gardens. Stretching along the Hudson and East Rivers and the Atlantic Ocean, New York is split into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. It’s North America’s largest city by a long shot, and remains a nonstop raucous ride with late nights, bright neon lights and cool cosmopolitan clout.
According to NYC & Company, visitor numbers to the US’s most popular city have nearly tripled since 1991. The pandemic affected this trajectory,…