RECOMMENDED: Fitness guide to NYC
While New York isn’t the crime-ridden, drug-addled town De Niro navigated in 1976’s Taxi Driver, it’s still not as safe as it may seem. John Caher, director of public information at New York State’s Division of Criminal Justice Services, explains that while violent crime declined nearly 43.9 percent between 1997 and 2006, “we shouldn’t necessarily sleep easy: Last year, 596 people were murdered and over 1,000 were raped.” For women especially, knowing how to avoid harm—and how to deliver a swift elbow to the jaw if harm approaches—might be one of best party tricks you can have up your sleeve.