Notes on the Great Manhattan Blackout of 2012

by David Farley on

The machine has stopped. The night after the hurricane took a bite out of the Big Apple, I lay in my West Village apartment dangerously close to three tea lights trying to read. I couldn’t concentrate on the book, though. The silence was too distracting. I could feel myself descending into my own personal darkness. Without electricity, hot water, heat, and cellphone service, the loneliness ran deeper within me than anything I’d experienced in a very long time. Like there was an impenetrable fortress wall around me; a solitary confinement sort of alienation; or, worse, a purgatory-like solitariness, as if I’d been condemned to live in this blackened paralysis for the rest of my life.

It sounds dramatic, but the machine really had stopped, to paraphrase the title of a prophetic 1909 short story by E. M. Forster. The sci-fi tale is about a society in the future who lives underground and in isolation from one another; they communicate via instant message and video using something called “the speaking apparatus.” Their quotidian existence, their very being, is totally dependent on this Kafka-esque machine – until one day it inexplicably stops and no one really knows what to do or how to interact with each other.A hundred and three years after Forster’s story was published, it’s safe to say we’ve become very used to being connected to the machine. In 2012, if we’re lonely we need only hang out on Facebook or Twitter or watch last night’s “Daily Show” online, transporting us away from ourselves, making us feel connected to something larger, and/or giving us something we’re becoming alarmingly in need of: self-affirmation.

I woke up the next day and the apocalypse that Forster portrayed hadn’t happened. But clearly New York City was in disaster mode. Electricity, someone told me, could be found north of 26th St. So I began walking north to Midtown, joining a steady stream of people marching toward where the machine was still feeding a population desperate for milk. I strode by mobs of people waiting for infrequent busses running up Sixth Avenue. Others tried to flag down cabs, which were low on fuel and in high demand. One woman on the corner of W. 18th St. and Sixth Ave., stood with her cab-hailing arm in the air, next to her sat an aquarium, her 5-foot pet snake waiting patiently for its ride.

In the distance, I could see it: flashing of lights. Streetlights. Electriciity. “Normality.” I crossed over 26th St. and it felt like being transported into a Technicolor world, a magical land where things buzz and flash and produce commodities. I left SoPo, South of Power, behind and strode right into the 21st century, leaving in my trail a cold medieval world lit only by fire. Are there unicorns in Electricland? Maybe. Can I get coffee and check my email on my cellphone there? For sure.

I spent my days working at the Midtown offices of the travel magazine AFAR, who generously let me camp out in their conference room so I could access the machine. I showered at Midtown locations of New York Sports Clubs. After that first day, the magazine’s co-founder and CEO, Greg Sullivan, wanted to descend into the eclipse that is my neighborhood, to see what a once-dynamic part of the city looks when it’s frozen in a technology-less tenebrosity. I immediately volunteered to play Virgil to his Dante and show him around this newly made obscure nether world.

We strolled the narrow, winding streets of the West Village. It felt like – it was – a ghost town. We occasionally passed other explorers, unable to make out a single physical characteristic of each other. We finally retreated into a bar, only lit by candles, but half full with festive drinkers who proudly wore a we’re-in-this-together spirit on their sleeves. Without the machine to keep us distant and distracted, strangers seem more wont to talk to one another.

Afterward, I went back up to my apartment. After another 24 hours of the deafening machine-less silence, I had begun to become more used to it. I lit some candles, opened up that book I’d been reading the night before, and read until I fell asleep into the dark, quiet Manhattan night.

[Photo by Jeremy Kressman]

Hurricane Sandy Aftermath: On The Ground In New York City

by Allison Kade on

For tourists and locals alike, the post-Sandy vibe in New York City is unusual, even eerie.

With subway lines down throughout the city, slow bus service and intense traffic – everyone’s who’s got a car is currently using it to get around – the remaining signs of wreckage from the storm make for a spooky Halloween. The city’s weird mood is backdropped by the continuing lack of electricity in lower Manhattan, which makes the normally iconic NYC skyline totally dark (you can see it here, if you click through to the 16th image).

Yesterday afternoon, there were hundreds or even thousands of pedestrians walking across the Williamsburg Bridge, which separates powerless Manhattan from a neighborhood in Brooklyn where electricity is flowing and residents are carousing as though a Frankenstorm didn’t just pass through. Children in costume walked the bridge with their parents to go trick-or-treating; for many, walking is the only viable way to get out of lower Manhattan, with public transportation at a near standstill.

The spooky pre-Halloween vibe was perpetuated in the Lower East Side by shops and bodegas that were open for business but totally dark inside. Katz’s Deli, a New York icon, burnishes a sign announcing it’s open – but that it doesn’t have power and, no, you can’t use its restroom.

With nothing to do inside, residents flock to the streets, chatting with their neighbors and walking aimlessly, all with a restless air that reminds me of a post-apocalyptic movie scene. Street lamps are dark at night, and the lack of traffic lights means policemen are directing traffic at crowded intersections. Cars are fending for themselves at mid-sized intersections.

The disquieting restlessness feels like the quiet before a storm of its own. On Halloween, of all nights, I can’t decide whether this is particularly appropriate, or especially haunting.

[Photo credit: Allison Kade]

Video Of The Day: Time Lapse Of Superstorm Sandy Hitting New York City

by Jessica Marati on

Richard Shepherd created this time lapse video of Superstorm Sandy hitting New York City by using images from the New York Times webcam, which has been positioned on the 51st floor of the Times building in midtown Manhattan since the start of the storm. The video shows the progression of Sandy from noon on October 29 until 9:30 a.m. on October 30. Keep your eye out for a shift at minute 0:42, when electricity went out and downtown Manhattan plunged into darkness.

New York’s LaGuardia Airport Flooded

by Jeremy Kressmann on

New Yorkers and residents along the Eastern Seaboard are just beginning to emerge today from the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy – millions remain without power, thousands of flights have been cancelled and transportation throughout the region has been severely disrupted.

If you need further evidence of what it looks like in New York here on the ground, just check out this shot posted this morning by a flight attendant at LaGuardia airport. The airport, which lies in a low-lying coastal area remains severely flooded this morning.

For those of you in transit this week, stay patient. It could be a few days before normal flight, train and bus service in and out of the New York area resumes normal activity.

UPDATE: A special thanks to tireless LaGuardia airport worker Francesco Giannola for your photo.

[Photo credit: Francesco Giannola]

Frankenstorm Brings Plenty Of Scare, Halloween Canceled For Many

by Chris Owen on

As waters from the Frankenstorm caused by Hurricane Sandy subside, six million people are without power, hundreds of thousands have been evacuated and thousands more are stranded in airports around the country. Not exactly where everyone wants to be on the eve of yearly Halloween celebrations.

“It’s the worst I’ve seen,” said David Arnold, from Long Branch, N.J., in a New York Times report. “The ocean is in the road, there are trees down everywhere. I’ve never seen it this bad.”

The far-reaching storm has East coast residents, normally planning on trick-or-treating, costume parties or haunted attractions, just trying to get back home. Once there, they hope to find a roof over their heads, power and food – elements of life they might normally have taken for granted.Instead of carving pumpkins or going door to door to collect candy in New York, residents are finding homes burned and transportation virtually stopped after Hurricane Sandy sent floodwaters into the city’s five boroughs, submerging cars, tunnels and the subway system.

Telling scary stories, watching horror films and playing pranks as part of a traditional Halloween may never have more meaning though, as residents recount what actually happened to them during the storm as we see in this video.



Still, in other parts of the country, Halloween events continue.

On the West Coast, California has a number of theme park attractions open including Knott’s Scary Farm at Knott’s Berry Farm, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood, Disney’s HalloweenTime and Mickey’s Trick-or-Treat Party at Disneyland Resort.

[Photo Credit: Flickr user furyksx]