Richard Drew / AP

Medallion owners will be required to buy the Nissan NV 200 at a cost of about $29,000 starting in late 2013.

The iconic New York City taxi cab is getting a new look. And some new functionality.

In a cab and your cellphone just died? No problem. Just plug it in.

New cabs hitting the streets of New York City next year will have charging ports for riders' electronics. They'll also have more leg room, a large skylight roof to gaze at the city skyscrapers and even odor-reducing and anti-microbial fabric to help deal with, well, you know, anything you might smell in the backseat of a cab.

A prototype of the Nissan NV200 will be unveiled Tuesday. The model was selected from among three finalists in a city competition.

With a boxy shape and painted a brighter yellow than the city's current taxis, the cab offers a different experience for riders — starting with a flat, hump-less floor that makes shifting from one side to the other a simple task.

City Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky said busy New Yorkers looking to get from point A to point B would find plenty to appreciate about the rides that get them there.

"New Yorkers are pragmatic but they also appreciate quality. This is a higher-quality taxi ride than what they're getting today," he said Monday.

The doors on the vehicles slide open, so no more risk of hitting a passing bicycle messenger, and they'll all come with a navigation system, so no more getting lost in the outer boroughs. There are floor lights, to help find anything that may have fallen to the floor, as well as overhead lights for reading. Luggage can go into the cargo space in the rear.

The Nissan van, which beat out proposals from Ford Motor Co. and Turkey's Karsan, will be phased in beginning in October 2013 as older taxis age out of service. All current taxis, including the city's hybrid cabs, will be off the streets by 2018. Nissan spokesman Steven Oldham said the company would be undertaking a pilot program with the Nissan Leaf electric car to see if it would be feasible to make the taxis electric in the coming years.

The vehicles will sell for about $29,000, and will come with the partitions included, Yassky said. Meters and the medallions will be the responsibilities of the buyers.

Have more to say? Be loud and proud on our Facebook page.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Frank Ockenfels / AMC

The Season 5 premier of AMC's "Mad Men" is March 25.

It may be impossible to time travel back to 1960s-era New York, but that hasn’t stopped some "Mad Men" fans and haunts featured on the TV show from trying.

"Mad Men," which premiers its fifth season on Sunday, is filmed predominately in Los Angeles, but nostalgia for the fictional advertising world of Don Draper and his fellow Madison Avenue executives has spawned a wave of tourism in Manhattan, where the drama is set.

The show “is as quintessentially New York as yellow taxis and pastrami on rye,” writes NYC & Company, the official marketing, tourism and partnership organization for New York City.

“New York City is the center of media and pop culture — visitors are drawn here partly because they see the city portrayed in film and television and it feels familiar to them,” said Kimberly Spell, chief communications officer for NYC & Company. Shows like “Mad Men” “accentuate the unique vibrancy, style and glamour of the city.”

Related: Will Don Draper finally be happy this season on 'Mad Men?'

Leading up to the premier, the city is boasting special hotel packages, "Mad Men"-themed cocktails, walking tours, and ample opportunities to dress up in period attire and turn back the clocks to soak up the retro style and glamour of the 1960s.

Here is a round up of some of them:

NYC Discovery Walking Tours offers fans a chance to stroll through midtown, taking in the history and architecture of the era. On “The World of Mad Men: NYC During the Early 1960’s,” stops include the Summit Hotel, the Seagram Building, the Pan Am Building, and the Lever House, and other places Don Draper might have seen when he leaves his office to buy a “35 cent pack of cigarettes and meet a client for lunch.” The public tour, which costs $20, is offered on Saturday, March 24, at 2 p.m. and Sunday, March 25, at 4:30 p.m. Call 212-465-3331 for reservations and meeting place. Tours by private appointment are also available.

Richard Anthony, one of NYC Discovery Walking Tours’ historians, said he and colleagues were impressed with the show’s authenticity. The scripts “are very well-researched, they aren’t at all arbitrary.” In recent months “there’s been a big buzz about 'Mad Men'; it’s led to this birth of interest in New York” during the early 60s. The private tour was given about four times in recent weeks, Anthony said. “People are always looking for that part of New York history they want to escape to.”  

Several companies offer general tours, including NYC Discovery Walking Tours’ “Famous Movie Sites of the East Side” and the guided bus tour “New York TV & Movie Sites,” given by On Location Tours, that pass or point out "Mad Men" locations, like the Time & Life Building and the Ziegfeld Theatre.

The Roosevelt Hotel NYC, the setting of several episodes and where Don Draper lived in Season 2 after his wife Betty threw him out, offers a “Mad Men in the City” package. Included are a stay in a newly renovated room, 1960s-inspired mixers at mad46, the 19th floor rooftop bar or at Madison Club Lounge, one of Draper’s frequent hot spots in the hotel’s lobby: two tickets to The Paley Center for Media; and copies of "Mad Men" Season 4 on DVD and the newly released “Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook” to take home. The package starts at $425 a night for a minimum three-night stay, and is available from March 1 to June 30.

The Pierre, a Taj Hotel, which has appeared in previous episodes, offers guests the chance to sip classic cocktails from the early 60s and “dress up in their favorite 'Mad Men'-inspired garb and embrace their inner Don Draper and Joan Holloway” beginning on March 27 and on every Tuesday throughout the season. The offer is part of the regular weekly complimentary jazz music series from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Two E Bar/Lounge. Cocktails on the special drink menu cost $14 and include Irish Coffee, one of fictional character Roger Sterling’s staples, and the  Bikini Martini, “the most voluptuous drink in town,” inspired by Christina Hendricks, who portrays Joan Holloway, made with Hendrick’s Gin, Peach Schnapps and Blue Curacao.        

The Paley Center for Media will host a “'Mad Men' Season Premiere Viewing Party” on Sunday, March 25, at 8 p.m. The fifth season premiere will be shown on the big screen, “all the better to soak up that gorgeous period detail.” Before the screening, there will be an era-appropriate cocktail party and a "Mad Men" Trivia contest. Guests will receive a Season 5 "Mad Men" poster, and are invited to “break out the sharp suits, pocket squares, and kicky frocks.” During the screening, commercial breaks will show actual ads from the early sixties, featuring Sterling Cooper clients like London Fog and Lucky Strike. Tickets cost $30.  

Though three-martini lunches and desk-side scotch cabinets may be largely gone in the 21st century, according to NYC & Company, its website invites prospective visitors to plan a self-guided tour by viewing a slideshow that features sites that appeared in the series or are tied in to the time period, like Sardi’s Restaurant and P.J. Clarke's, a vintage watering hole where patrons can still drink “frosty mugs of beer and hear Frank Sinatra on the jukebox, while the dining room serves up mouthwatering comfort food (including, according to Nat King Cole, ‘the Cadillac of burgers.’” But one word of advice from the slideshow: do not waste time looking for 405 Madison Avenue, the address of the fictional advertising agency: it doesn't exist. 

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An aerial photo of the lower Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty taken on Aug. 30, 2011.

New York City, one of the country’s top travel destinations, attracted a record-breaking 50.5 million visitors last year, a peak topped only by its rival Orlando.

Last May, the Florida city announced that 51.5 million visitors came in 2010, making it the first U.S. destination to attract over 50 million visitors in one year.

The New York figure, announced last week, exceeded an earlier estimate for 2011 of 50.2 million visitors. The original number was exceeded, said George Fertitta, chief executive of NYC & Company, the city’s tourism marketing organization, because holiday-period visitation was higher than first expected, in part the result of unseasonably warm weather during the last two weeks of the year. 

Total visitors to New York grew 3.5 percent last year, up from 2010’s 48.8 million visitors, with visitor spending rising $500 million to an estimated $32 billion. Hotel occupancy averaged 85 percent, with a 5 percent increase in room nights sold, while airport arrivals through November rose 1.4 percent over 2010. 

In addition, the city continued to attract the highest share of overseas visitors to the U.S. of any destination. One-third of all foreign travelers to the U.S. (excluding travelers from Canada and Mexico) visited New York. Overseas visitors spend appreciably more on their stays in New York than domestic visitors: NYC  & Company estimated they spent $1,503 per visit in 2010, or a total of $12.6 billion, compared to an expenditure of $432 per visit by domestic visitors.

David Huether, senior vice president of research for the U.S. Travel Association, projects a 3.4 percent increase in trips by international visitors to the United States in 2012, down from a 4.2 percent increase in 2011, “primarily because of European economies’ relative lack of health, compared to Asia and Latin America.”  He also estimates that the total number of trips taken in the U.S. will increase 1.5 percent this year and 1.8 percent in 2013.

Huether stressed the “growing importance” of visitation by travelers from Brazil, as well as from China and India. These countries “are recovering faster from the global recession than the developed world, and their outbound travel is growing faster, it’s a source of growth for the United States,” he said.

Visit Orlando, the city’s tourism marketing organization, projects the destination will receive 55 million visitors this year, including a 1.4 percent increase in total international visitors.

New York and Orlando have a long-standing dispute over which city is the No. 1 U.S. travel destination; New York officials discount Orlando’s claim, arguing that the Florida city’s figures are inflated because they include areas beyond Orlando’s city and county borders.

Fertitta told msnbc.com that he expects the number of visitors to New York will rise between 2 and 2.5 percent this year, with increases particularly from countries like Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.  “The economic situation in Latin America is very strong and there is a lot of airlift,” he said. "There’s a real pent-up desire to travel here from [there] …We’re cautiously optimistic and keeping a pretty big eye on the global economy.”

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Slideshow: The Big Apple

Long referred to as the center of American business, New York is a melting pot of cultures and landscapes. Take a visual tour of some of the Big Apple's most famous attractions.

Launch slideshow

Timothy A. Clary / AFP - Getty Images

Some riders wait for the subway in their underwear as they take part in the 2012 'No Pants Subway Ride', Jan. 8. Started by Improv Everywhere, the goal is for riders to get on the subway train dressed in normal winter clothes (without pants) and keep a straight face.

From the New York Daily News:

To maintain the surreal atmosphere, the pantsless commuters were instructed to chat, read and listen to music like they normally would have if clothed.

Full story: No Pants Subway Ride hits New York City for 11th year

Chris Helgren / Reuters

Participants in a 'No Trousers Day' flashmob ride the London Underground transit system with other tube passengers in London, England, Jan. 8. About 150 people divided into groups and stripped to their underwear, as part of an annual social media-driven event held in several cities worldwide.

Marco Ugarte / AP

Participants in 'A Day Without Pants' event, ride the subway in Mexico City, Jan. 8. The event was organized by Flashmob Mexico.

Follow @msnbc_pictures

Mark Lennihan / AP

David Bowser, left, and his son D.J. Bowser visit the National September 11 Memorial on Thursday in New York. The memorial has seen a million visitors since the site opened to the public in September.

Work on a planned museum at the World Trade Center has ground to a halt because of a financial dispute, and there is now no possibility it will open on time next year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday.

The underground museum commemorating victims of the 9/11 attacks was scheduled to open in September on the 11th anniversary of the disaster, a year after the opening of a memorial at the site that has already drawn 1 million visitors.

Related: Tourist held after trying to check gun at WTC site

But in recent months, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum foundation has been fighting with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey over who is responsible for paying millions of dollars in infrastructure costs related to the project.

The Port Authority, which owned the trade center and is building the museum, claims that the foundation owes it $300 million. The foundation claims that the authority actually owes it $140 million, because of delays in the project.

The dispute has been simmering for some time, and some details of the work slowdown were reported in November, but Thursday marked the first time that the mayor and other officials have acknowledged that the fight would mean the museum will not open in 2012.

"There is no chance of it being open on time. Work has basically stopped," Bloomberg said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on a recent radio program that the Port Authority was "on the verge" of suing the foundation, but both the mayor and the Port Authority said Thursday that negotiations over the matter continue.

"I'm sure we are going to work something out with the Port Authority," Bloomberg said. "They've got a difficult budget situation. I'm sympathetic to that."

Despite security hurdles and ongoing construction, tourists from around the world have already made the memorial at the site a regular stop on their visits to New York City. Since it opened to the public Sept. 12, more than 1 million people have visited the memorial plaza, officials said.

The site now draws about 10,000 visitors a day, which would put it on pace to match or exceed the 3.5 million who visit the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building annually.

Tourists — some reverent, some just there to gawk — have long been a staple at ground zero, but until this summer the closest they could get were the high fences that ringed a bustling construction zone where the twin towers once stood.

Negotiating fences and legions of construction workers is still part of any trip to the memorial. All visitors must reserve free tickets in advance and pass through a security screening. But the hurdles haven't stopped people from coming. Memorial officials said visitors have hailed from all 50 states and 120 countries.

Anthoula Katsimatides, a memorial board member whose brother, John, was killed at the trade center, said the attention is welcome.

"It truly touches my heart and reaffirms the importance of this memorial to know a million people have already come here to honor and pay respects to my brother and the thousands of other loved ones who died in the attacks," she said in a written statement.

Visitors to the site today can walk on a tree-covered plaza and see the two massive pools that sit in the footprints of the fallen towers. Each pool is ringed by waterfalls, and a parapet engraved with the names of the nearly 3,000 people who died on 9/11 and in a 1993 bomb attack.

Visitors can also get a close-up look on construction of One World Trade Center, now 90 stories high and on its way to being the nation's tallest building.

The original design for the rebuilt trade center included four other office towers, a transit hub and a performing arts center, as well as the memorial and museum.

Two towers and the transit hub are under construction. On Thursday, the memorial foundation set up a board of directors for the planned performing arts center, for the first time. The board includes trade center developer Larry Silverstein, Disney executive Zenia Mucha and Brookfield Properties co-chair John Zuccotti.

More than $100 million was set aside for the center by a downtown rebuilding agency and architect Frank Gehry was hired to design it, but private fundraising never began. Only one of four arts organizations originally chosen to anchor the center is still planning on moving in and officials say construction wouldn't begin for several years.

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Spencer Platt / Getty Images

The High Line public park offers a respite from the bustling sidewalks.

Insider recommendations are the lifeblood of a good trip. Everyone wants to know the little neighborhood gem favored by locals, the nondescript door you should open rather than walk on by — because someone whose opinion you trust told you so.

Slideshow: The ultimate travel itinerary for three city neighborhoods

For years while traveling I collected business cards and jotted down notes for the stories I was reporting and for my personal blackbook of favorites. Now, though I’m not wholly fluent, I love being able to communicate the things that I’m excited about right in the moment through social media outlets — and to spontaneously act on recommendations for where to go next. The bubble I used to travel in has expanded into a river of information flowing both ways.

Over the course of a few recent days, I set out on an experiment in my hometown, New York City, with Travel + Leisure fans as my guides and Facebook as our facilitator.

I chose to concentrate on three lively neighborhoods — Chelsea, Nolita and Williamsburg — and began by asking T+L fans for hotel recommendations. The only advance reservations I made were at two hotels that were suggested.

So I woke up one morning of the experiment at the Dream Downtown hotel and set out to explore, checking in periodically for more tips on where to turn next.

In search of a breakfast spot near the High Line, I opted for Cookshop after seeing the suggestions from two T+L fans (“My favorite neighborhood resto,” one posted to Facebook). I understand why after enjoying what can only be called the consummate American morning meal: fried eggs with sausage, bacon, grits and a buttermilk biscuit.

En route to another reader recommendation, I came across an establishment barely one week old and rare as hen’s teeth: a coffee shop fronting a speakeasy. It was a reminder that there’s always something new to discover, even in your own backyard, and that you shouldn’t get your head too buried in your smartphone.

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New York City cabbies are being warned that horn honking could lead to a $350 fine.

A warning message from the Taxi and Limousine Commission began appearing on taxicab information monitors Monday: "Drivers — remember that honking is against the law except when warning of imminent danger! Be a good neighbor and save yourself a $350 summons — honk ONLY in an emergency!”

The TLC says passengers should tell drivers that they do not want them to honk their horns. If the driver does not comply, they should call 311 to report the violation.

“We understand and appreciate that drivers want to be responsive when passengers are in a hurry to get to their destinations,” said TLC Commissioner David Yassky, “but horn abuse isn’t the way to accomplish that goal.”

The city recently announced that a new taxi model, expected on roads in November 2013, will have a "low annoyance horn."

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This story originally reported on nbcnewyork.com.

Yotel

The New York Yotel, which opened in June, is one of several new hotels to open in New York City in 2011.

Planning a trip to New York City? You’ll find plenty of places to stay.

The Big Apple is experiencing a hotel room boom. More than 30 New York City properties opened their doors in 2010, and so far in 2011, 18 new hotels have opened. “As of August, our inventory count was 88,144 rooms and we have approximately 2,000 rooms in the pipeline for the remainder of 2011,” said Chris Heywood of NYC & Company, the city’s official marketing and tourism organization. “We expect to reach 90,000 rooms by year end.” 

The Sanctuary Hotel, where rooms include crystal chandeliers, leather headboards and leather-printed wall tiles, opened in September and the high-tech YOTEL New York, featuring 669 small-even-by-New York-standard sleeping pods or “cabins,” opened in June.

Several of the newly opened properties — including W New York Downtown, Andaz Wall Street, the Doubletree Financial Center and the World Center Hotel, are in Lower Manhattan — the revitalized area now home to the 9/11 Memorial.

Half of the NYC hotels that have opened this year are in Manhattan, with the others in the neighboring boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens.

“Intrepid travelers willing to go a few stops on the subway now have the option to save 30 percent to 40 percent on their hotel room rates and still get a unique New York City experience,” said Heywood.

For example, the Aloft Brooklyn, part of Starwood’s chain of hip, lower-priced hotels, opened in June and has been sold out almost every night. The 64-room Hotel Williamsburg, also in Brooklyn, will open Oct. 17 and features an onsite restaurant, swim club, cocktail lounge, rooftop bar and lending library of vinyl records. Vintage-style record players will be standard in every room.

If you do head to the Big Apple, be sure to bring your checkbook.

According to NYC & Company, the average daily rate for a hotel in New York City hovers around $250, but that doesn’t include sales, occupancy and use taxes of about 15 percent.

Special events such as Fashion Week, major conventions or the recent meeting of the UN General Assembly can fill the best rooms and cause hotel prices to spike significantly citywide. None of that seems to deter business or leisure travelers, who kept New York City hotel rooms filled to a healthy 85 percent occupancy rate during 2010 and are doing the same in 2011.

"The good news is that prices are not as high as the market peak in 2008," said Melissa Klurman, contributing editor for Travelocity.com. "And since many of the new properties added this year are mid- to lower tier, there are deals to be found."

More money-saving tips for New York City can be found at nycgo.com.

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Find more by Harriet Baskas on Stuck at The Airport.com and follow her on Twitter.