The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a specific paradox of contemporary urban planning. Cities that since the dawn of civilization have been considered the safest and most attractive human habitats turn into traps in a pandemic. For example New York, the most densely populated city in the United States, became the world’s epicentre of the pandemic in April 2020. Since 1992, successive teams governing the city stimulated pro-ecological planning strategies. From a neglected city, threatened with crime and plagued by terrorism, they turned it into a green metropolis, a symbol of a city of the 21st century. One of the most important planning and urban achievements was the successful revitalization of the post-industrial waterfront piers of Brooklyn and Queens. The rapid growth of bicycle transport stimulated by the planning authorities and supported by the construction of a network of bicycle routes along the main streets and coastal promenades should be noted as well. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of the planning transformations in New York on the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and to answer the question whether they made the city more resilient and safer.