Blackout '77

[Edgy MD]

Lenny Randle posted this shot of the NYC blackout of 1977, taken after the emergency lights kicked in at Shea.



I'm trying to figure out what this guy is looting.

[Lefty Specialist]

Edgy MD wrote: I'm trying to figure out what this guy is looting.

Looks like a mattress.

[Ceetar]

battering ram.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

It looks like a support beam from some larger structure.

[Fman99]

The guy is ripped, maybe he's not looting, maybe he just carries that thing around for fitness.

[Edgy MD]

It looks like some kind of curio display cabinet. The doors in the base are swinging open on the left.

[Frayed Knot]

Little known fact, but curio display cabinets are always among the first things looted during riots.

[Edgy MD]

Lenny, by the way, besides being the compleat ballplayer, is a recording artist. Let this jam from eighties (apparently) with Thad Bosley dim your lights.

[Vic Sage]

if you look at that stadium shot really closely, and look at the Mezzanine behind 1st base, you'd see me and my parents...if you knew what my parents and I looked like.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Lenny can bring the funk.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Vic Sage wrote: if you look at that stadium shot really closely, and look at the Mezzanine behind 1st base, you'd see me and my parents...if you knew what my parents and I looked like.

Wow, what was that like to be at Shea during the blackout?

[Vic Sage]

At the start, there was a buzz of hostility in the stands due to the recent trade of Seaver and Kingman, as well as the terrible play we'd endured that season, but Koosman was blowing them away that night, and we were winning (on edit: no, we were losing 2-1 to the Cubs in the bottom of the 6th), and Randle was up and things were looking good. Then the stadium lights went out, and the emergency lights were on. Everybody sort of laughed, figuring it was another team screwup and thinking it was just a stadium issue. But i had a transistor radio (i liked to listen to Murphy call the game while i watched it live), and they were saying "city wide blackout". There was no announcement about that in the stadium (remember, 1977 - no cellphones, no ipods, no wireless communication other than a radio), but i told my parents. As most fans were busily engaged in group singalongs, waiting for the lights to come back on, we quietly and casually headed out, figuring there'd be a stampede once it was announced.

We got out to the parking lot alot quicker than most, and got out easily, but the city looked pretty eerie from the highway. My dad was driving his beat up Chrysler Newport (a huge boat of car -- it was the 70s), and we're relieved to be heading home, dreading what might happen in the city during a blackout. That's when steam starts pouring out from under the hood. My dad has to pull off the highway somewhere in a crappy part of Brooklyn (Williamsburg? Bed-Stuy?). He opens the hood and stares at the radiator, while scanning the periphery for potential threats. People are milling about on the street, and its almost like a block party feeling. A guy comes up, offers to help, temporarily fixes something, puts some water in our radiator and sends us on our way.

Did this event redeem our faith in our fellow man? Yeah, until we got home and realized our hubcaps were gone. Nah, just kidding.

I just always remember the blackout as being a metaphor for 1977 -- the year of the Mets midnight massacre, as well as "son of sam", fiscal crises ("Ford to City: Drop Dead"), "You light up my life"... it was a really shitty year, folks. But that guy on the side of the road was a little ray of light in a dark time.

Edited July 15, 2013 by Guest

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Great story. Thanks.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Mother Bucka's Ice Cream Parlor, West 8th Street, Coney Island, Blackout of '77


Where was I when the lights went out? Home, listening to the Mets game on the radio.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Blackout +1: The Subway platform at Rockefeller Center during rush-hour, 5PM.