Crowds to storm NYC for summer’s start
Grab your sunglasses, sunscreen and MetroCard—this Memorial Day weekend promises to be city’s busiest ever.
With fair weather forecast, the start of Fleet Week, and new attractions this year on the waterfront and Governors Island, the city is gearing up for an unusually crowded Memorial Day weekend.
Hotels are at around 88% capacity, according to Chris Heywood, a spokesman for NYC & Co., the city’s marketing and tourism organization.
“Last year was a record” for Memorial Day weekend lodging, he said, “and so far, we’re on track for another record year. Demand is very strong.”
Travelocity, a leading online travel agency, has seen bookings for Memorial Day weekend flights to the city soar in the past few years.
“New York City is the No. 4 destination for Memorial Day weekend, coming in behind Las Vegas, Orlando and South Florida,” said Genevieve Shaw Brown, senior editor at Travelocity. “It also happens to be the most expensive of those, in terms of hotel stays.”
New York was also the No. 4 destination for Memorial Day weekend in 2010 and 2009, Ms. Brown said.
The city is promoting revamped waterfront attractions at Coney Island, with its new Scream Zone, and expanded activities on Governors Island, where officials are hoping two new public sculpture exhibitions and free outdoor concerts will draw crowds.
A new smoking ban took effect this week, for the first time covering city beaches and parks. City Parks Department Commissioner Adrian Benepe said the city introduced the smoking ban partly as a result of public pressure, and partly because cigarette butts, which he said represent up to 70% of the pieces of garbage picked up on beaches, are “a particularly long-lasting and pernicious form of litter.”
Although 19 million visitors crowded New York’s shoreline parks last Memorial Day weekend—three times as many as in 2009—for the first time in years there are enough lifeguards, more than 1,300, to cover all of the city’s beaches and pools, according to Mr. Benepe. The lifeguard jobs pay $13.50 per hour with 48-hour work weeks through the season.
Tourist attractions, businesses and cultural institutions are also launching into high gear.
A spokeswoman for New York Water Taxi and the downtown Circle Line said the company had expanded its popular hop-on, hop-off tours from weekends only to seven days all season amid growing demand, and have also seen especially high interest from resident New Yorkers in the company’s newest tour, “Bike the Brooklyn Bridge/Water Taxi Back.”
And a costume exhibition of Alexander McQueen designs has drawn lines since 10:30 a.m. Friday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, according to museum spokeswoman Elyse Topalian.
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