A technician works on a light post where a temporary surveillance camera is installed in New York. New York City police are blanketing midtown Manhattan with temporary surveillance cameras as one of many security measures being taken to protect visitors for the Super Bowl.

When Super Bowl fans fill the streets of New York City next week, police will be watching them closely — in person, in the air, and on closed-circuit monitors. The New York Police Department has quietly installed about 200 temporary surveillance cameras in midtown Manhattan to help spot trouble along "Super Bowl Boulevard," a 13-block street fair on Broadway that’s expected to draw large crowds during the windup to the game.

Banners promoting a fair compete on the same lampposts with decidedly less festive signs reading, "NYPD Security Camera in Area." The heavy surveillance is one facet of a vast security effort by scores of law enforcement agencies that spent the past two years devising their own version of a ‘zone defense’ to protect Super Bowl events that are all over the map.

Manhattan and Brooklyn will be the scene of dozens of pre-game gatherings, while across the Hudson River, Newark will stage Media Day, Jersey City will host the Seahawks and Broncos at hotels there before the kickoff on Feb. 2 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. […]