Talk about good luck. Just before the Homer Simpson of the electrical world shut down power to tens of millions of people — seriously, we gotta find out who hit the DO NOT PUSH button — our small work group of mostly non-drinkers was served a case of beer on ice for our departing photo editor's send-off. So I was buzzin' even before walking down 23 flights of stairs to Sixth Avenue.
Grabbed a beer at an outdoor bar for the 20-block walk home, scaled 11 flights of pitch-black stairs up and down to grab my camera and headed straight to Yogi's, where I met a friend. (See my pictures from Blackout 2003.) The jukebox was down, but our spirits were up and the beer was plentiful and cold on ice. The crowd supplied the music, singing Thunder Road, Friends in Low Places and the theme to The Jeffersons.
We then went to my favorite Upper West Side bar, Harrison's, where most of the crowd was drinking on the sidewalk. When discussing the possibility of looting, the owner told me a story about how he was shot when one of his bars was robbed. He then shot and killed one of the vermin.
Next stop Boubon Street (the bar, not the New Orleans puke factory), then to Gray's Papaya around 1 a.m. — shit, this is starting to sound like a regular night — before ascending another 11 flights of stairs to my steamy apartment, stripping off my sweat-soaked clothes and passing out ass-wasted.
Overall, I kinda enjoyed the blackout. It's always interesting to see how people react when society as we know it takes one on the chin. I saw good smaratins directing traffic in their work clothes, serving food on sidewalks and coming into bars with guitars. And there were a few Chicken Littles and moaners. There were a lot of people in tough spots — the sick, the handicapped, those trapped underground, in elevators or far from their homes — but for me it was just a hot hassle. And not much of one at that.
• New York Times' Complete Blackout Coverage
I was worried about you yesterday... thinking damn it must suck having to walk home. Saw this 1 guy say he walked 100 blocks. I'd kill myself before I walked 100 blocks. Then having no a/c. Thank god I wasn't born 100 years ago, I wouldn't have survived.
Posted by Livia at August 15, 2003 1:59 PMBar scene sounded like a good time. That's where I woulda been to begin with, not even bothering to walk home.