We haven’t been there (used to be there, regularly, until family, thankfully moved, before China virus lockdowns 🙏🏻🙏🏻), in three years.
It was definitely a cesspool, then…and, I can only go by accounts that I read here (almost daily, violent crimes) and that I see on the news/news outlets.
Glad you have a driver to get you directly where you need to be. We did, too.
It has changed so much, since when we first began visiting family, there.. :-(
Maybe in the Bronx or some parts of Brooklyn. I know how Manhattan was three years ago and it has definitely changed.
NYC is a very big place so there is always something bad the media can report on. But you're very unlikely to see any of it traveling from the Lincoln Tunnel or the GW Bridge to the Upper East Side.
ML/NJ