When The New York Sun published its first edition on April 16, 2002, the city’s cultural scene was reeling from the impact of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The city’s way of life had been threatened, and the role of the arts was, understandably, in question. But the past five years have seen a turnaround from caution to boom time. A broad look at the arts today — on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of The New York Sun — shows just how resilient and dynamic New York’s cultural community is.

Perhaps more than any other art form, opera is on a significantly more vigorous course than it was five years ago. Major changes in management have put the art form in the news, and the new productions that result from those changes will keep it there. In August 2006, Peter Gelb became the general manager of the Metropolitan, and the impact was almost immediate. Suddenly, opera was presented to the city with come-see-the-show verve. The Met marked its opening night with a free, televised performance of “Madama Butterfly” in Times Square and has broadcast performances in high definition to movie theaters across the country. Weekday performances were made more accessible with the Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman Rush Ticket Program, in which 200 orchestra seats were sold for $20 two hours before curtain time.

The new openness at the Met was important enough, but just last month, New York City Opera announced that the director of the Paris Opera, Gérard Mortier, will bring his brand of adventurous programming to this city in 2009. The seasoned, controversial Mr. Mortier will follow the departure of Paul Kellogg, who also retired as artistic director of Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, where general director Michael MacLeod took the reigns.

Changes in leadership are pushing other arts forward. The naming of Arlene Schuler as president and CEO of New York City Center had a major impact on dance in New York. In 2004, with the Fall for Dance Festival, Ms. Shuler took a major step toward bringing a new audience to dance. The six-night festival offers programs with five different companies on the bill each night — for $10. The annual lines around the block for tickets have encouraged a London version at the Sadler’s Wells Theater.

At the same time, New York’s major dance companies have made longterm investments in their futures. American Ballet Theatre, stabilized under the leadership of Rachel Moore, ensured the quality of its ranks in 2004 with its own academy — the Jacquline Kennedy Onassis School. In 2005, New York City Ballet deepened its commitment to new choreography with the launch of a fellowship program within its New York Choreographic Institute. In 2005, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater moved into the Joan Weill Center for Dance, a state-of-the-art home for its company and school.

On Broadway, ticket sales are on a steady climb. In the 2005–2006 season, Broadway ticket sales grossed $862 million and attendance reached the 12 million mark — up from $643 million and 10.9 million tickets in the 2001–2002 season. The emerging theater scene got a boost in 2003 with the development of a new building and greatly improved theater at Playwrights Horizons, where the recent hit shows “I Am My Own Wife” and “Grey Gardens” had their start. Downtown’s Flea Theater came back from the brink after September 11 with “The Guys,” which ran for 13 months with a rotating cast of stars.

When Jazz at Lincoln Center moved into the Time Warner Center, jazz found a showcase at the heart of the city and strengthened its presence as a result. With excellent acoustics and sightlines, the Rose Theater has turned out to be a superb venue for the performing arts. Carnegie Hall expanded its offerings with Zankel Hall — and partnership with City Center. The redesign of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts will unfold in the next few years, but already, there has been one excellent step forward: the demolition of the bridge over 65th Street.

While headlines are captured by major institutions and start-up endeavors, vast numbers of smaller companies form the foundation of New York’s diverse offerings. Their devotion to the repertory is going strong across the arts: Amato Opera sings masterpieces in a jewel-box setting at $35 a seat; the Pearl Theatre keeps classic plays onstage; Voices of Ascension maintains the choral tradition, and the New York Theatre Ballet dances narrative ballets in condensed form for children.

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In galleries, museums, and at auction, the visual arts are enjoying a moment of wild success. Even so, one of the most memorable moments for art in the past five years — Christo and Jean-Claude’s 2005 “The Gates” — occurred in Central Park, New York’s most sacred public space. The project, which received much support from the administration of Mayor Bloomberg, brought art into the life of the city in a rare and wonderful way; love it or hate it, everyone talked about it.

On the contemporary art scene, Chelsea is now flooded with galleries and visitors, so much so that the neighborhood is a major weekend destination. Once a neighborhood in disrepair, Chelsea is now saturated and real estate is scarce. Williamsburg emerged as an alternative, but now gallerists are returning to the Upper East Side for exhibition space.

Museums around town have expanded their spaces and offerings. This week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will open its Greek and Roman Galleries, a project that — though part of the museum’s original plan — was sidetracked for decades. The Brooklyn Museum of Art last month opened its Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. In November 2004, the Museum of Modern Art opened the doors to its new building, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, that doubled its capacity. The Dahesh Museum moved to spacious facilites at the IBM building in 2003, and later this year, the New Museum of Contemporary Art will move into its own modernist building. The city has also seen new museums, such as the Neue Galerie in 2001 and the Rubin Museum of Art in 2004.

At auction, prices are skyrocketing prices while markets and collectors emerge. In November, Andy Warhol’s “Mao II” sold for a record auction price of $17 million, but that record could be broken next month; Christie’s estimates the artist’s “Green Car Crash” will fetch between $25 million and $35 million at its Contemporary Art sale. And at Sotheby’s, the spring sale includes a major get: David Rockefeller is selling a 1950 Rothko with an estimate of $40 million. As contemporary art has soared in prices, auctions of Asian art and 19th-century European paintings have also come along — all part of a roaring market where there is increasing attention and status derived from buying art at auction.

Of course not everything is perfectly rosy. Beloved shops — Coliseum Books and Tower Records — have closed, and the rock club CBGB met its end. But for every closure, something else seems to pop up. Adam’s Books in Park Slope and the Park Ave. Corner Shop opened, as have a number of new vinyl stores in Williamsburg; music fans have found Union Hall in Park Slope a worthy repository of cool.

More troubling than any closure, however, is the uncertain nature of the arts at the World Trade Center site. The Drawing Center and the Signature Theatre dropped out, leaving only the Joyce Theater. These changes suggest that there are more to come before this Frank Gehry-designed venue comes to fruition. Whether that center is built or not, one thing is for sure: If the next five years are anything like the last five, New York will be a thriving capital of the arts in America.