Don t be scared. I used to live in NY, I was in Manhattan on September 11th, and I still work in NY. I ve never met anyone who was paranoid about something bad happening, especially not 8 years after the fact. Security is great now. The police, FBI, and DHS all work vigilantly to keep us safe. It s the most populated city in the US - it wouldn t be that way if people were afraid of boogey men.
Actually NYC is safest big city in the nation, sleepless city with ever changing scenes. Many famous buildings, world class evens,museums, broadway music shows and stylish fashion and design. Many New Yorkers live in fast pace style, so they don t care others, you needn t paranoid at all.