With COVID-19 infection rates significantly diminished and most of its state’s pandemic-related restrictions now lifted, New York City is eager to jumpstart its economy and rekindle tourism. To that effect, mayor Bill de Blasio has just announced an executive order that will suspend the city’s 5.875-percent hotel room occupancy tax for a three-month period, beginning June 1.

As part of New York’s efforts to jump-start tourism, New York mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that the city’s 5.875% hotel room occupancy tax rate will be temporarily eliminated for a three-month period, starting June 1.

As the city reawakens from the long pandemic, some of the most iconic spots are now open for business.

In late April, the commercial real-estate firm CBRE released a report with some alarming data: New York City’s hotels, at their current pace, would claw back to pre-pandemic levels of occupancy by 2025. And this was better than previously expected: The growing vaccination clip and new COVID-19 relief, forecasters hoped, would give the battered hospitality industry the boost it so desperately needed after its worst year on record.

In Times Square, the most densely tourist-populated place in the United States, a mentally disturbed man known as Mr. Kim begs cops to kill him. ‘I want to die. You have a gun? Shoot,’ he pleads. After the officers demur, he picks up a plank of wood and starts smashing it against the Pele soccer shop.

The lights of the entertainment world and the normalization of many activities in the Big Apple already have a start date: May 19, after more than a year of pandemic blackout. With this announcement, it is also “Open the curtain” of the recovery of at least 90,000 jobs, in addition to the ventures and dreams of thousands of Hispanic families that depend on tourism.

Police are continuing to search for those involved in the Times Square shooting that left three bystanders wounded on Saturday. Mayor Bill de Blasio also announced that “additional NYPD resources” will be deployed to the area “to add an extra measure of protection.”

The phones at the Fitzpatrick Hotel in Midtown are ringing more often lately. After dropping to 10% during the height of the pandemic, occupancy levels have shot up to 30%.