Anxiety and humor mixed at blackout’s beginning http://www.downtownexpress.com/DE-18/anxietyandhumor.

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Volume 16, Number 12 | Aug. 19–Aug. 25, 2003

BLACKOUT

Anxiety and humor mixed at

blackout’s beginning
By Elizabeth O’Brien

Downtown Express photo by Ramin Talaie

Manhattan workers stream onto the Brooklyn Bridge after the power outage.

The power might have cascaded to a halt last Thursday afternoon, but the
realization of what actually happened came to most New Yorkers in a
trickle.

When lights and computer screens went dark at 4:11 p.m., many thought
that only their floor, or their building, was affected. Then, in curbside
chats or bursts from battery-powered radios, people became aware that it
was bigger than their building, bigger than their block.
All five boroughs are out? Then — What’s this about Detroit? Canada??

New Yorkers hit the streets well before the cause of the blackout became
clear. Many Downtown workers began a long trudge north, while Lower
Manhattan became a funnel for those streaming across the Brooklyn and

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Anxiety and humor mixed at blackout’s beginning http://www.downtownexpress.com/DE-18/anxietyandhumor.html

Manhattan bridges.
“My first thought was that it’s better to be outside than inside, and I’m not
wrong,” said a man who identified himself only as Sergei, 34, who works
in the Citigroup building on Greenwich St.

On their way Uptown, Sergei and a colleague had stopped to sip Belgian
beers at Walker’s, on the corner of Varick and N. Moore Sts. Happy hour
crowds formed early on Thursday, as people all over the city satisfied their
thirst and their need for companionship — and helped drain inventory that
would have gone warm.

Some managed humor amid the uncertainty.

“Are the horses still working?” Joel Sosinsky asked a police officer as he
passed by the stables at the First Precinct on Varick St.

People asked the officers what was going on, but the Finest could only
point the way to the bridges. You probably know more than we do, they
said. In the media capital of the world, people relied on a Depression-era
form of communication. Groups gathered around parked cars with the
radios blaring.

Others felt too anxious to pause on their way home. The prospect of
another terror attack loomed large in those first few hours.

“I don’t know what this is, but it seems like Al Qaeda,” said Monica
Giraldez, 33, as she hurried out of Tribeca on her way to Grand Central.
The weather also reminded her of Sept. 11, 2001: hot and sunny.
Giraldez was hoping to catch a diesel-powered train to Westchester. Home
seemed a remote destination for many last Thursday afternoon.

Dana Wade, 37, and her friend Anita Adams, 36, perched on the giant
picnic tables outside City Hall as they watched the crowds jockeying their
way onto the Brooklyn Bridge. Both needed to go deep into Brooklyn,
Wade to Sheepshead Bay and Adams to Flatbush. But neither was sure she
wanted to risk passage just yet.

“To me, that just looks like a hazard,” Adams said. What if you get stuck
up there and something happens? Adams wondered aloud.
It looked like a sluggish marathon on the Brooklyn Bridge, with thousands
of sweaty pedestrians making their way around stopped cars. The bridge
shook under the weight, and there were pockets of muted panic as walkers
realized the road was bucking beneath them. A man sat down. A woman
began singing a hymn.

Then came voices of reassurance.

“We’re all right,” said one woman. “It could be a lot worse.”
And then the man who spoke for us all:

“Tell me this is not a day to remember.”

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