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Saturday, August 16 Black Out 2003 NYC
28 hours and Forty Minutes In the Lower-East-Side-Manhattan Thursday I spend the day trying to push some of the things in my apartment into some kind of order. All of my possessions are either in a box, in storage or piled into corners to make way for the renovation of my apartment which is pretty much at its three quarters way mark. While I love the way the bathroom and kitchen were shaping up, I didn’t love the allergy attacks I’d been having since I set foot in the door. Evidently the thing I am most allergic to is construction dust. I’d been popping pills since I moved back in, but who’s complaining? The workmen covered the 5 flights of stairs in my building with paper and taped them down to keep any damage from happening to our carpeting. This was very professional of them, but unfortunately by Thursday, some of the heavy-footed tenants in my building had already made a mish mash of a lot of the paper. By 4:00, after a marathon day of running errands and de-dusting my home, I feel like my skin is boiling… I’m sure it was in the 90’s. I make my way up the paper stairs and throw myself into a cool shower, then I turn the AC from low to high. Rrrrrrrrrrthunk. My AC goes off. This had happened a few times since construction began, so I call La C to ask her to send the plumber to the basement to switch the power back on. My phone doesn't work. My cell was out of batteries and the lights were flickering; not quite off, not on either. I manage to get a dial tone on the fax machine. “I’ve got no power!” “The whole neighborhood is losing power. The lights just flickered off at the Life Café! I’m heading over to your place now!” All of a sudden we hear a giant boom! It is the loudest noise I have ever heard in this hood. It is followed by a rumbling that spreads out. It reminds me of the sound of an avalanche. I remember the distant sound of the world trade center being hit. It occurs to me that a building nearby is going down. “I gotta look! I gotta look!” I yell to La C and race to the roof. The Empire State Building is in tact as are all the buildings that I can see. There is however black smoke billowing from the Con Edison Plant a few blocks away. I know by now that the Con Ed plant is one of the biggest terrorist threats. The city won’t even let you take the 15th street exit off the FDR drive now. They don’t want to take any chances. I’ve always felt a tad concerned about living so close to the plant. I watch as people run out of the project on 12th street frightened and panicking. I know that they are thinking exactly what I am feeling; that it’s September 11th all over again. I feel my heart banging in my throat. I run down the paper stairs to see if La C has arrived. I find her on the stairs. “They say a transformer blew!” she said. “So it’s not….” “No..” she said. I begin the process of what will take me the rest of the day, trying to get my breathing to slow back down. We walk outside to the sidewalk. The locals have begun congregating around car radios. The mini van in front of our place is blaring the news. “There is no power in all 5 boroughs and the outage has reached as high as Canada. Thousands of people had to be evacuated from the subways.” The reporter says. I breathe and look around at my neighbors. We are all confused, concerned, frightened but all lucky. At 4:30 a lot of people would have been in the trains, not as bad as 5:00, but pretty bad. I imagine how horrible it must be to be evacuated through those tunnels. I wonder how long they were trapped in the crowded trains on this hot summer day, with no AC and no lights. “Buy water and candles..” “Buy flashlights.” “Buy batteries.” I run to Avenue C but the bodega has already pulled its gate down. The other old stores where hastily shutting down too. These are old timers. They've been in NYC long enough to remember the black out of 77. They aren’t taking any chances. I moved to Brooklyn in 1981, just a few years after the terrible blackout, but the people in my hood still spoke about that terrible night in hushed horrified tones. “They just walked down the streets with grocery carts and took anything they wanted. All the windows were broken. Everything was crazy!” One of my neighbors had told me. La C’s friend waits in the car with the AC running. She was about to leave on a 6-hour car trip to Cape Cod. La C sits in the car with her trying to talk her out of driving. I walk to Avenue B. The Korean Deli is open with a long line forming. They were selling anything people could carry in the dark. I bought two gallons of water and two protein bars. Back at the hacienda, Jeff the dentist and Luce his assistant are standing outside with their arms folded. He’d been finishing up a filling when the power went out. The radio voice says, “The traffic lights are out and pedestrians are volunteering to direct midtown traffic. Thousands of people can be seen walking over the Brooklyn Bridge.” “I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” I say to La C’s friend. It occurs to me that I have nothing in my fridge except for a piece of cheese and a box of crackers. I’d been away for a month, my place was under construction and there wasn’t even a can of tuna fish in the apartment. All the restaurants and stores close except the pizza place and already, there is a line out the store and down the block. I walk back to Avenue C to see what my friends at Cafecito the adorable little Cuban joint are going to do. The prep cooks are sitting outside on the steps. The owners have a consternated look on their faces. They couldn’t get their security gate to go down. It is electric. “We’re gonna have to throw everything out,” Manny says. “I guess the sangria is gonna go bad so maybe we should make the neighbors happy,” I say hinting loudly. We walk back to the hacienda with two pitchers of sangria, a pitcher of ice and a stack of plastic cups. Mike the cool dude from next door is sitting on the stoop, we fill him up, then Luce, Jeff, La C, her friend, two strangers, the super next door and myself. “It may have started in Niagara,” the radio says. “Damn Canadians!” a local says. “Hey Manny if you’re gonna throw stuff out, how bout some munchies for us!” I say nudging him. “Sure.” He takes me back to Cafecito and loads me up with turkey, cheese, rice, beans and a few rolls. Then he gives me three cold beers in a plastic bag. I return happy that at least I have a meal for the night for La C and myself. “What you got?” Mike says. “Cafecito plunderings…get over there before they give it all away.” Amy from the 3rd floor comes by and I send her to Cafecito too. She returns with the same thing; turkey, cheese, rice and beans and bread. Ivan, Amy’s roommate shows up. He looks pale and its covered in sweat. I send him to Cafecito and he returns a few minutes with a tray filled with roast pork. No one has a working kitchen or lights, so we make hasty plans to meet on the roof for a makeshift potluck pilfered barbecue supper. La C manages to get a room at the W hotel in Union Square for her pal. “I’m gonna walk her over there. I’ll be back within two hours, save me some food.” I remember that Jay was supposed to come down from Spanish Harlem and meet me for drinks at 6:00. I can’t call him but decide that only a truly psychopath would have tried to walk the 100 blocks to see me. He’s probably home reading by candlelight, a true bohemian to his core. I go upstairs and find a battery-operated radio, I bring this, a bottle of water and some candles to the roof. I try to find anything resembling a plate or a fork but all the contents of my cupboard are hidden under a pile of boxes. On the roof I look out over the city. At this point, an hour before sunset, with the first bits of amber haze starting to darken the air, one would begin to see the lights of the skyscrapers. It would be at this point that I would get my first glimpse of what color the Empire State Building had decided to cloak herself in. Nothing illuminates except for a growing number of candles beginning to appear in windowsills in the projects. I have this pang of self pity, knowing that it’s been hard enough to navigate around my apartment with the lights on, but in the black-out it’s gonna be hell. I have no food in my home except for the pilferings from Cafecito and the piece of cheese and the crackers and my allergies have taken over big time. “Hello sweetie!” comes the voice on the roof. I look up. It’s Jay. He is bright red and covered in sweat. His t-shirt is sticking to his body. “Oh my god! Tell me you didn’t walk 100 blocks to see me!” “Well sweetie. I wanted to get out of my house and I wanted to stay with my other friend downtown and I guess I didn’t want to be alone.” “Awwww.. poor little baby afraid of the dark.” “Yes sweetie.” Jay does not have the same upbeat smile that usually adorns his face. I am used to his manic energy, his contagious laughter and his “nothing gets me down” personality. Today he seems strange and small. “Are you okay?” “Well sweetie…you know ….I am not...You see a few days ago. I tested positive for H.I.V. …so...I just have to sort things out for awhile.” "Oh my god Jay!" Just then Manny emerges on the roof carrying semi thawed steaks and fish from Cafecito. “Let’s Barbecue!” he screams. I am left with Jay’s announcement sitting in my ears buzzing waiting for a reply that I now cannot give as we are no longer alone. I walk over to Jay and put my arms around his shoulders. “Yes.” He smiles. Amy, Ivan, Mike and Amy’s two gal pals arrive just as the last bit of sun is setting. We light candles and turn our small collection of flashlights upwards. I make excuses to walk to Jay often and rub his back, run my fingers in his hair. I am trying to say, “I am here and I care,” amidst the abrupt party around us. “Later sweetie….we’ll talk next week.” He says. I navigate with a flashlight down the black stairs in search of something to marinate the steak and fish with. The paper has by now become something of a death trap. I nearly fall enroute to my 4th floor apartment. There are only two items I can find in my home that might be suitable; a bottle of soy sauce and a bottle of honey Dijon. My cats run at the sight of the flashlight. The construction debris was enough to upset their delicate balance but the heat and the roving beams from the flashlight send them hiding in the bedroom. Back on the roof I marinate the steak and then the fish in soy sauce, mustard, beer and olive oil. Jay volunteers to grill by flashlight. While the entrees are cooking Amy doles out paper plates and we begin to compile our meal made out of the pilferings of Cafecito; rice and beans, turkey, cheese, roast pork, warm beer, bottles of water. When Jay finishes the entrée’s we pile our paper plates high oblivious to the juices run through to the picnic table. Oddly the meat and the fish are deemed delicious. La C shows up just in time to get the last piece of steak and fish. I cover this with rice and beans. She smiles and yells, “Man this is so much nicer than the W hotel. Here in the east village, you get free food from the restaurant on the corner; your neighbors are sharing bread and water. The W charged us 500 bucks for a room up 10 flights of stairs. There was no running water, no power, no AC. They closed the restaurant and charged us 23 bucks for a beer and a glass of wine!” “They didn’t give out anything free to their guests?” “Just water….and I think they double charged everything else.” “Man!” It’s clear that a night like this can bring out the best and the worst of people. I walk around the roof and look out at the dark city. The Empire State Building is black. There are no lights anywhere except at ground zero. “They must have put in generators after 911!” someone said. “Well they deserve to be the only ones with power after everything they’ve been through!” We joke and drink water and eat our strange combination plates, but there is an eerie feeling of deja vus from September 11th that covers us all in something between sadness and fear. Two helicopters with searchlights fly by and hover over the projects a few blocks away. They beam their lights down searching. We hear sirens and shouts and see what we assume to be police searching the project with flashlights on the next block over. “There’s gonna be some shit tonight,” I say. I listen to the shouts and the sirens and remember Crown Heights Brooklyn where I came into adulthood. It’s been years since I lived in what you would call a dangerous neighborhood but my body tenses up in something like a physical memory. I have no desire to go back to where I’ve come from, no desire to even look back. La C smokes a Cuban cigar and we pass around a bottle of single malt scotch. There are now a few more people on the roof, friends of a neighbor we think. We don’t know who they are, but we give them melting ice pops anyway. “Well sweetie I should go..” Jay says. “I’ll walk you down.” I escort him down the black ripped paper stairs with my flashlight and walk him out to the street. Everything is black except for a large group of giggling Asian women huddled around candles scurrying down the street. “Will you be okay?” “Yes..honey…I will stay to the main streets…I don’t have far to go.” “Call me…I want to know everything…every step of the way..” “Allright …we’ll have dinner next week and then we’ll talk.” We hug and I watch him disappear into the darkness. I feel him walking away long after I lose sight of him. La C and I say goodnight to our roof guests and run a bath of ice-cold water. There is no hot water, but we are so hot we don’t care. We submerge into the cold water and feel the heat rising out of bodies like steam. La C falls asleep immediately but I lie awake for awhile listening to the sirens and the shouting from the projects. We spend the night naked, with the blankets kicked off on the floor, dreaming of fans and air conditioners. In the morning I am awakened by the sound of silence. No one in my building is showering to go to work. No one is pulling their cars out of the lot. The silence is strange and frightening. It reminds me of the eerie calm on September 12th. I sit there feeling my allergies reach into my sinuses and feeling the heat covering my body and the sad deja vus and I know that nothing I feel this morning can compare to how Jay must be feeling, waking up in someone else’s apartment and knowing that today he faces the world with a new burden in his heart. He is alone, without family, without insurance and without a lover. I have nothing to complain about. La C and wake up and make a breakfast out of 2 cups of boiled water borrowed from Mike next door which I pour through a funnel filled with coffee to make her coffee and pour over a cup with a green tea bag for myself. We eat cookies. We take ice showers and go about the mission of trying to figure out how to feed ourselves. We dress and walk out into our hood. Nothing is open except the Life Café. They are serving warm water and eggs. We walk a little further. Just about every pizza place is open. Pizza, it seems, is blackout proof; dough, cheese and sauce in a gas oven. The pizza places have a line down the block. We walk through Tompkins Square Park. We have never seen so many sunbathers in the park before. People who took this Friday off and scattered everywhere in various stages of undress. In the middle of the park is the remnant of what was a huge fire made of garbage. It is still smoking as we pass. We go to Marguerites place; La Palapa on St Marks. She has no food or ice but is serving chips with salsa and guacamole and margaritas straight up to anyone who wants it. We keep walking. Someone says there is power on the west side, so we walk past delis serving warm water and cut fruit, more pizza places with long lines. Finally on West 16th Street we come upon my friend Arlene’s place; Maroons. Arlene, ever the entrepreneur has taken all her fridge items and cooked the hell of them. She is serving fried chicken, jerk chicken, ribs, Mac and cheese, rice and beans and collard greens from a buffet made out of aluminum chafing dishes. The food is greasy and salty and decadently tasty but its not cheap. We pay 33 dollars for our two meals, but we no one was complaining. “Honey I’m gonna keep serving food as long as people keep eating!” Arlene screams in delight.
The East Village is still powerless when we return. We take an ice bath and La C lies down in bed. “God I would love to watch some TV..” she says grumpily. The excitement of last night’s potluck supper has lost its edge. We are hot, bitchy and bored. We want our power back. I take this opportunity to throw out all the rotting food in my fridge and take it downstairs to the garbage dump. Then I go around the corner to the only place open, you guessed it, the pizza joint. I buy 4 slices from the small man in the dark restaurant and coerce him into selling me a plastic cup filled with red wine for La C. La C is unconscious and snoring when I return so I put her food and wine aside and climb to the roof. The sun is setting, many locals are up on their roofs taking advantage of a wondrous breeze. I see the top of the Empire State Building begin to show signs of white and charcoal light. The distant buildings downtown and in the far west begin to show signs of light but our area is still dark. I light a candle and watch as the terrace apartments in the project begin to light up with candles. There is a lot of shouting and carrying on the street. People are having fun, and people are fighting. It’s hard to tell the difference in the sounds. As the sky turns black, large parts of Manhattan begin to light up but nowhere on the Lower East Side. I go downstairs into the black paper stairs, fed up and dejected and light the candles scattered around my apartment. At 9:00 PM, 28 hours and 40 minutes after we lost our power, the lights begin to come on. There is a scream of YAY from the projects and whooping and car beeping and cheers from a mile away. I run up to the roof to watch all the lights go on and scream too. “Waahooooooooooo!” Then I run back to La C. “Thank god….” She says. Suddenly the phone works, the fan works, the TV works, the computer works and our black little hot hole in which we’ve hidden for the last nearly 29 hours becomes a part of the world again. I think of Crown Heights and of September 11th. How silly I was to think these things were erased from me. How fully they re-appeared the second the lights went out. I shrug it off and call Jay.
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