NEW YORK - It's a typical late summer weekend in New York's Times Square, and tourists from around the world are snapping pictures beneath the commercial hub's iconic neon billboards - watched closely by a heavy contingent of police.

Four cruisers are parked in the middle of the busy intersection, and pedestrian zones have been surrounded by barriers to stop cars from ramming the crowd, a mode of attack favored by violent extremists in recent years.

"I don't like to come to places like this," says Sue Garcia, a massage therapist from Brooklyn. "Or anywhere where incidents have happened repeatedly - the fear comes to mind."