Where were you? The Blackout of 1977

Who was batting for the Mets on July 13, 1977 when the lights went out in New York City?*

I can’t say I remembered the answer to this trivia question, but I do have some vivid memories of that evening. I was in the shower in my house in Canarsie. Home from college for the summer, working temp jobs in the city during the day, that particular evening, I was home alone. My parents were visiting my grandparents in Florida. I have no idea where my brothers were – but I know they weren’t around. Uncle Terry and Aunt Barbara were living in the upstairs apartment in Canarsie, and they were keeping an eye on me while my parents were away (I was 17 years old). That particular evening they were visiting friends in Rockland County and weren’t home yet.

It was unnerving to have the lights to go out while I was in the shower. I shook off visions of Psycho and climbed out of the tub, slowly, carefully. Once I opened the bathroom door, there was enough ambient light to find my way to my bedroom just across the hall. It was about 9:30 pm, but not fully dark since it was still early in the summer. I got dressed quickly so I could check outside to see if my neighbors had power.

I went out on the front porch and saw that all the houses and street lights were dark. I went back inside and found some flashlights. The phone rang. It was Aunt Barbara telling me that they were on their way home. I was grateful for that. I was also relieved that the phone was working. I felt a bit less isolated. I think I spent much of the next hour on the phone, talking to the guy I was starting to see, waiting for Uncle Terry and Barbara to get back. Eventually they made it. Things were quiet on our block. The same could not be said for other parts of the city, though I didn’t know that at the time. It was probably a blessing that I couldn’t find a transistor radio or turn on the television.

After my aunt and uncle got back, the three of us sat on the porch for a while, trying to capture the scant breeze. Eventually we gave up, went in and tried to get some sleep. New York City was suffering through a brutal heat wave, the demand for power and some unfortunate lightning strikes caused the blackout.

When I woke in the morning, the power still wasn’t on. That meant I couldn’t go to work! I was able to make a plan to go to the beach with the guy who I was on the phone with the night before. I had my parent’s car, since they had flown down to Florida. It was a 1972 Impala, a behemoth, it was like driving an ocean liner. The car was so big I had a difficult time maneuvering it. A couple of weeks earlier I went on an outing in the Impala with my friend, Merle. I drove first to Kings Plaza, a huge mall in Brooklyn, where Merle got out of the car to help me negotiate the parking garage ramps which seemed entirely too small for the mammoth car. Then we went to Island Park to visit our college friends. We were like Lucy and Ethel on that trip, Merle trying to give me directions from the handwritten notes I had taken over the phone from Dianne, while I tried to stay calm in the traffic on the Belt and Sunrise Highway. Growing up in Brooklyn in a one-car family, I didn’t drive often. Merle and I made it to Island Park and back – I only bumped a garbage can while making a u-turn – we were otherwise unscathed. But, we were exhausted from laughing so hard.

Despite my driving deficiencies, my guy and I made it to the beach in the Rockaways. It was late morning and the heat was already oppressive. There was a lot of traffic on the Belt Parkway for a Thursday after rush hour. We weren’t the only ones with the idea of getting an extra beach day in during the workweek. It was one of those summer days that wasn’t sunny, but we had to squint because of the glare.

Listening to the car radio, we heard about the looting and violence of the night before. People took advantage of the power outage to smash windows and break into stores and generally commit mayhem, especially in downtown Brooklyn. The city, which still had not recovered from being on the brink of bankruptcy, had a reduced and demoralized police department. It was also the ‘Summer of Sam.’ It wasn’t just the heat and humidity that hung in the air and left us feeling unsettled. The threat of a serial killer was another ingredient in an already roiling pot.

It was an odd time for me, a time of transition. Although objectively the atmosphere in Canarsie was more fraught than in my years as a child and adolescent, I was not as anxious. I had more friends and was embarking on my first romantic relationship. I had a long way to go to quell my insecurities, work still in progress, but I had made a turn for the better. The blackout of 1977 didn’t derail me.

*Lenny Randle. If anyone knew this, you win a prize 🙂