My God, man. This would be like having a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the Somme region of France in July through November 1916.
The opportunity to just “visit” NYC came and went.
You won’t be able to protect yourself or your wife.
But it’s your choice. What I find odd is all the people giving you advice on places to see and things to do as if the events of the past 2 years never happened; as if BLM and Antifa and riots didn’t occur, and out of control crime there that we read about daily just does not exist.
I think you watch too much TV news.
I've been coming to NYC just about every day for years on public transportation and never had an issue. The worst a tourist can expect here is aggressive panhandling and the usual scam artists you will find in any big city.
Last summer my wife and I went to Minneapolis, which everybody told me was the epicenter of the BLM/Fascist riots. I saw no signs of that anywhere and we had a great time there. Ditto for Chicago.
It always looks worse on the TV because they are always focusing on the absolute worst things that happen and play them over and over again.
I was in DC on January 6 and all I saw was an exuberant Trump rally with 800,000+ great patriots even though the TV would have everybody believe a full scale insurrection was going on.
In March of 1977, when New York City was much worse than today in terms of crime and decay, my high school class took a weekend trip there and in our yearbook were photos of us walking through Times Square when it still looked like something out of Taxi Driver with the X-rated movies everywhere. All of us were just fine.
I'm 60 years old and the worst crime that ever happened to me was a mugging - in Cedar Rapids, Iowa!
We need to stop being slaves to the mass media who only want to scare people and keep them cowering in their houses.
Get out and live your life. Mind your own business, take common sense steps like keeping your wallet in your front pocket, stay away from the obvious sketchy areas and you'll be just fine vacationing in NYC.