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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is production of iHeartRadio. Hello

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Speaker 1: and welcome to This Day in History Class, a show

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Speaker 1: that shines a light on the ups and downs of

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Speaker 1: everyday history. I'm Gabe Luzier, and in this episode, we're

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Speaker 1: looking at the infamous blackout that plunged New Yorkers into

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Speaker 1: darkness during one of the bleakest periods in the city's history.

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Speaker 1: The day was July thirteenth, nineteen seventy seven, a citywide

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Speaker 1: power outage created total chaos in New York City. The

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Speaker 1: twenty five hour blackout was primarily caused by a series

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Speaker 1: of lightning storms in nearby Westchester County, though operator mistakes

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Speaker 1: and mechanical failures are believed to have played a role

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Speaker 1: as well. In any case, after the skyline went dark,

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Speaker 1: many New Yorkers seized on the confusion and began looting

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Speaker 1: businesses and starting fires in the streets. The mayhem revealed

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Speaker 1: just how dire the social and economic conditions had become

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Speaker 1: in many parts of the city, but the only immediate

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Speaker 1: response to the unrest was that more than thirty seven

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Speaker 1: hundred people went to jail. It was the largest mass

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Speaker 1: arrest in the history of New York City. And a

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Speaker 1: clear indication that something was rotten in the Big Apple.

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Speaker 1: By the time the blackout hit, there was already a

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Speaker 1: prevailing sense of unease in the city. That was partly

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Speaker 1: because New York was in the grips of a brutal

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Speaker 1: heat wave, with temperatures often topping one hundred degrees for

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Speaker 1: several days at a time. But the sweltering heat was

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Speaker 1: actually the least of the city's worries that summer. The

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Speaker 1: ongoing financial crisis was a much greater concern. By the

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Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies, New York was on the verge of

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Speaker 1: bankruptcy and responded by slashing the budget for many of

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Speaker 1: the city's social services. This resulted in the closure of

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Speaker 1: hospitals and public libraries, as well as massive layoffs of

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Speaker 1: civil servants, including firefighters, police, public school teachers, and sanitation workers.

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Speaker 1: These cutbacks pushed the unemployment rate even higher, while also

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Speaker 1: putting further stress on the residents who relied on these

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Speaker 1: services the most. And if widespread poverty and inequality weren't

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Speaker 1: bad enough, there was also rampant crime to contend with.

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Speaker 1: In the last ten years, the rates of murders, assaults,

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Speaker 1: and car thefts in New York City had more than doubled,

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Speaker 1: and at the time of the blackout, the son of

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Speaker 1: Sam serial killer was still on the loose as well.

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Speaker 1: The whole city was a powder keg of tension then

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Speaker 1: ready to blow at any moment, and the match that

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Speaker 1: wound up setting it all off was a severe thunderstorm.

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Speaker 1: On the night of July thirteenth. Shortly after eight thirty PM,

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Speaker 1: a bolt of lightning struck two high voltage lines at

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Speaker 1: a power plant in Westchester County. Then about twenty minutes later,

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Speaker 1: another lightning strike took out two more power lines at

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Speaker 1: an electrical substation along the Hudson River. That station alone

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Speaker 1: provided power to eight million people in the Greater New

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Speaker 1: York area, and when it went down, it triggered a

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Speaker 1: wave of power failures throughout the system. Neighborhoods blinked off

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Speaker 1: one by one, and by nine forty PM all five

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Speaker 1: burrows of the city had fallen dark. Those who had

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Speaker 1: gone to bed early wouldn't learn of the blackout until

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Speaker 1: the following morning, provided, of course, that they lived in

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Speaker 1: the relative peace of an affluent neighborhood. But for anyone

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Speaker 1: out and about that night, there was no avoiding the

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Speaker 1: topic of the blackout. The power was off almost everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Thousands of travelers suddenly found themselves stranded at the city's

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Speaker 1: airports and train stations, while underground commuters were escorted off

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Speaker 1: stalled trains and guided through pitch black subway tunnels. At

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Speaker 1: Lincoln's Center, the audience was evacuated in the middle of

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Speaker 1: a ballet performance, and at Shay Stadium, a game between

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Speaker 1: the Mets and the Chicago Cubs had to be called

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Speaker 1: off during the sixth inning. Many New Yorkers had to

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Speaker 1: walk home that night through dark, nearly deserted streets, glancing

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Speaker 1: over their shoulder all the while to make sure the

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Speaker 1: son of Sam wasn't sneaking up on them. The more

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Speaker 1: intrepid residents made the most of the situation, like those

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Speaker 1: at a bar in Midtown Manhattan, where customers simply carried

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Speaker 1: on drinking by candlelight. However, the mood was far less

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Speaker 1: cheerful than other parts of the city, most notably in

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Speaker 1: Bushwick and portions of the Bronx, where many communities of

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Speaker 1: color resided. All the city's pent up frustration seemed to

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Speaker 1: boil over right there in the poorest neighborhoods, subjecting their

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Speaker 1: peaceful residence to what the mayor would later refer to

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Speaker 1: as quote a night of terror. The New York Times

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Speaker 1: described the scene in a front page story the following morning.

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Speaker 1: According to the author, quote, thousands of looters, emboldened by

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Speaker 1: darkness and confusion, ranged through the city last night and

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Speaker 1: early today in a wave of lawlessness. Amid shattering glass,

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Speaker 1: whaling sirens, and the clang of trash cans used to

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Speaker 1: demolish metal storefront barricades, thieves and vandals ravaged store after store.

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Speaker 1: Firefighters responded to a total of one thousand, thirty seven

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Speaker 1: fires that night, dozens of which were still burning the

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Speaker 1: next morning. The city streets were also littered with broken

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Speaker 1: glass and debris from the more than sixteen hundred stores

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Speaker 1: that had been broken into. Power was gradually restored to

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Speaker 1: the city on July fourteen, and the entire system was

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Speaker 1: back online by ten forty that night, roughly twenty five

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Speaker 1: hours after the blackout began. A congressional study later placed

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Speaker 1: the cost of the city's damages at a little over

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Speaker 1: three hundred million dollars or about one point five billion

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Speaker 1: in today's money, but the social costs of the seventy

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Speaker 1: seven blackout were much harder to measure. Nearly four thousand

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Speaker 1: people had been arrested in a number of hours, many

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Speaker 1: of whom were crammed into overcrowded cells and makeshift holding areas.

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Speaker 1: Their shoddy treatment was a reflection not only of the

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Speaker 1: overstretched police force, but of the racial and political tensions

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Speaker 1: that had made the city such a volatile place to

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Speaker 1: begin with. The blackout threw these issues and many others

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Speaker 1: into sharp relief, and once the lights were back on,

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Speaker 1: it was clear New Yorkers had a lot of cleaning

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Speaker 1: up the dew in more ways than one. I'm Gabe

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Speaker 1: Lucier and hopefully you now know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. If you enjoyed today's show,

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Speaker 1: consider keeping up with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

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Speaker 1: at TDI HC Show, and if you have any feedback

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Speaker 1: you'd like to share, feel free to pass it along

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Speaker 1: by writing to this Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks

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Speaker 1: to Chandler Mays and Ben Hackett for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another Day in History. Class