A New York City Blackout Memory

On July 13th, exactly 42 years after New York City experienced a wide-spread power outage that darkened Manhattan, history almost repeated itself. I was present for the original event.

I arrived in New York earlier that day, July 13, 1977, checked into a modest hotel on the street that forms Central Park’s southern border, took a walk about Manhattan that featured a moveable feast from street vendors, and returned early to my tiny room. As I was reading, the lights went out; so, with nothing else I could do, I went to bed.

Later, I was awakened by a telephone call from my wife who informed me that she had seen on our television back home that much of the nation’s Northeast was in a blackout. Of course, before cell phones and social media, that was more news than I could obtain locally. She was worried; I was merely sleepy.

The next morning the hotel illuminated its restaurant with candle light and warmed beverages by canned Sterno flame. Then, I walked to my appointment….the set of “Good Morning America”…..where I was to meet David Hartman, the show’s first-ever host….. who was to do a public service announcement promoting high school athletics.

But, of course, there was no power on ABC’s set for its popular morning show.  Mr. Hartman included the script I gave him in the papers he gathered up, and he rushed to a private airport where he took a short flight to Washington, DC to host his daily morning show from studios there….after which he recorded our PSA flawlessly in a single take.

David Hartman had been a tremendous high school athlete — especially in baseball — in Rhode Island — and he was a natural spokesperson for the National Federation of State High School Associations which had sent me on this memorable mission.

This year, power was restored in about three hours.  The 1977 blackout was a 25-hour event resulting in more than 3,500 arrests and many millions of dollars in damage, none of which was apparent to me as I meandered around Manhattan for  the rest of that sunny summer day in 1977.

JER