New York City, known as the City that Never Sleeps took an unexpected nap Saturday night (July 14) when a reported 73,000 customers from Midtown to Times Square 42nd Street and the Upper West Side were without power.
Officials said that a transformer fire at West 64th Street and West End Avenue is likely the cause of the power outage, however, at about 12:30 AM Sunday (July 14) Con Edison CEO Jon McAvoy said electricity had been restored in most parts of the city.
During the nearly five-hour blackout traffic lights in the touristy section of New York were down, while 10 subway lines were also halted, forcing some riders to leave the station and walk on foot or remain underground, bearing the humidity. Despite the spotty cell phone service, some who were trapped in elevators were able to call firefighters to help.
St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hotel, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and Radio City Music Hall (pictured above) were all without power during the outage.
New York City Mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Bil de Blasio took to Twitter instructing New Yorkers to stay inside if they can, and said city agencies would “work with ConEd to get to the bottom of what happened tonight and prevent another widespread outage like this.”
The 2019 blackout isn’t a first for native New Yorkers. Coincidently, on July 13, 1977, a power outage affecting most of the city took place, while in 2003 New York, along with most of the east coast, midwest, and Ontario, Canada lost power on August 14 of that year. It took about two days to restore power to most of the city.
And just because the power was gone, doesn’t mean people stopped having fun. The cast of Broadway’s Hadestown did an impromptu performance outside, the theater which brought light to many.
When the NYC #blackout hit the Walter Kerr tonight, André and the company had to take this party to the streets! (🎥: @misskimizzo) #Hadestown #Broadway pic.twitter.com/oZTW3gaimm
— Hadestown (@hadestown) July 14, 2019
