NEW YORK: More than a year after coronavirus shutdowns sent “the city that never sleeps” into a fitful slumber, New York could be wide awake again this summer. Starting Wednesday, vaccinated New Yorkers can shed their masks in most situations, and restaurants, stores, gyms and many other businesses can go back to full capacity if they check vaccination cards or apps for proof that all patrons have been inoculated. Subways resumed running round-the-clock this week. Midnight curfews for bars and restaurants will be gone by month’s end. Broadway tickets are on sale again, though the curtain won’t rise on any shows until September. Officials say now is New York’s moment to shake off the image of a city brought to its knees by the virus last spring — a recovery poignantly rendered on the latest cover of The New Yorker magazine. It shows a giant door part open to the city skyline, letting in a ray of light. Is the Big Apple back to its old, brash self? “Maybe 75 percent ... It’s definitely coming back to life,” said Mark Kumar, 24, a personal trainer. But Ameen Deen, 63, said: “A full sense of normalcy is not going to come any time soon.” Last spring, the biggest city in America was also the nation’s deadliest coronavirus hotspot, the site of over 21,000 deaths in just two months. Black and Hispanic patients have died at markedly higher rates than whites and Asian Americans. Hospitals overflowed with patients and corpses. Refrigerated trailers served as temporary morgues, and tents were set up in Central Park as a COVID-19 ward. After a year of ebbs, surges, reopenings and closings, the city hopes vaccinations are turning the tide for good. About 47 percent of residents have had at least one dose so far. Large swaths of the country and world are also starting to get back to normal after a crisis blamed for 3.4 million deaths globally, including more than 587,000 in the US. In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio has declared it the “summer of New York City.” There are other signs New York is regaining its bustle. Some 80,000 city employees returned to their offices at least part time this month, joining the many municipal workers whose jobs never were done remotely. Subway and commuter rail ridership is averaging about 40 percent of normal after plunging to 10 percent last spring, when the subway system began closing for several hours overnight for the first time in its more than 115-year history. Shakeem Brown, an artist and delivery person who works late in Manhattan, spent up to three hours a night commuting back to his Queens apartment before 24/7 service resumed Monday. Brown, 26, said it’s “refreshing” to see things opening up. The sidewalks and skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan, for instance, are still noticeably empty. Big corporate employers largely are not looking to bring more workers back until fall, and only if they feel it is safe, said Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a major employers group. “Shutting down was easy. Reopening is hard,” Wylde said after a meeting last week with a group of CEOs. “All the employers say that there still is fear and some resistance to coming back.” Besides virus fears, companies and workers are wondering about safety, she said. Crime in the city has become a growing source of concern, but it is a complicated picture. Murders, shootings, felony assaults and auto thefts rose in the first four months of this year compared with the same period in pre-pandemic 2019, but robberies and grand larcenies fell. So did crime in the transit system, probably because of the drop in ridership.