38th Anniversary of the '77 Blackout.

[68jk09]

Tonight Tues 7-14-15 at 2100 hrs PBS will air a show on the '77 Blackout that happened 38 yrs ago last night...... www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/blackout/player/

 

[Atlas Aerial]

Good find. Thanks for sharing.

Ok so let's start a "where were you when the lights went out?" Thread.  I'll lead off: I was 12 and was in my parents bedroom in our Upper West Side apartment watching their small black and white TV. A Don Rickles TV show called "CPO Sharkey" was on.  For some reason that fact sticks out in my memory.  It was obviously hot so we opened all the windows. On our second floor corner apartment.  One side overlooked Central Park and the other side looked up a side street which could only be described as "ghetto".  Later that evening there was a good job up that block in a drug infested 20x50 that were all over the city during that miserable period.  It went to at least an All Hands and probably went to a 2-2. But hey I was 12 so everything was big then to me.

 

[FDNY793727]

Can't answer that question, wasn't even born yet ;D. Just here to say the video can be watched on the PBS website in full: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/blackout/player/

There are also a few short clips with additional video on the PBS American Experience Youtube page (plus other interesting videos): https://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanExperience/videos

 

[68jk09]

On Broadway in BKLYN from 2230 hrs that night until around 1030 hrs the next day....several Jobs one after the other......On July 13 back in 1977 around 2130 hrs the lights went out & accompanying widespread looting & arson commenced & went unchecked thru the night & into the next day......sporadic looting & Fires continued for at least a week ..... many business's that now had been totally looted continued to be set on Fire just for sport culminating a week later in a 10 Alarm Fire in Bushwick which was started in an abandoned factory & resulted in the destruction of numerous occupied stores & dwellings .....on the original night of The Blackout i spent 12 straight hours fighting Fires along Broadway in Bklyn....the end result was the total destruction of numerous blocks that had been thriving business's .....most of the area to this day has never recovered.....looters were so intent on getting what they could that for the most part we had no direct incidents w/them .....the Police were severely overtaxed & spread very thin.....i remember one furniture store on Broadway around Gates Ave that had PD guarding the front & looters using a small back door to remove furniture....they were so brazen that they simply dismantled items inside then brought the pieces thru the small door & just sat there on the sidewalk assembling them w/out a care in the world....early on before the Bus traffic was halted (because of the lawless mobs but more so because the streets were quickly becoming impassable due to material & Fire apparatus) there were groups who had chains that they would attach to a closed security gate on a store then when a Bus slowly passed thru the crowd they would attach it to the Bus pulling the gate off thus gaining access to another store.....at one Fire in a heavily involved Butcher Shop that we were operating in LAD*112 who was assigned the floor above gave us an Urgent message about an extremely heavy load on the floor above ....the apt above was filled front to rear w/brand new refrigerators that had been stashed there earlier in the night ....we went to several other Fires one after another until the next afternoon ......at some Jobs there might be only one or two LADs & no Eng so we would just stretch off a nearby ENG that was operating at another Job close by ..... as far as the eye could see up & down Broadway there were Units ( some from as far away as Staten Island ) operating & almost wall to wall people/looters .....this was part of my night/day .....similar scenes were repeated in many other areas thru out certain sections of the City.....it was a long time ago but sometime it seems like yesterday.......  http://blackout.gmu.edu/events/tl1977.html

 

[68jk09]

http://nycfire.net/forums/index.php/topic,6414.0.html

 

[turnout]

I was in Rockaway that night, the only place in the city that had lights.

 

[fdce54]

I was on vacation in Santa Monica staying with friends the night of the blackout. Early the morning of the 14th my buddy who was getting ready to go to work woke me up to tell me there was a blackout in New York and there were fires all over the city. Well I got up and turned on the news and they were showing a tape of a fire in the Bronx in a row of stores that morning. As the camera scanned the fire, it zoomed in on the street sign on the corner and it was Morris Ave and 183 St. My parents lived only a few blocks away on University Ave north of 183 St. I called home and mom told me of a night of never ending sirens and smoke. I told her it was time for them to move. And they did but not until 1982.

 

[svd385]

Was at the volunteer fire house in harding park.  Since the normal city units (e96/L54, E64/L47, E94/L48) . were extra busy with the various projects in their response areas as well as the large amounts of store fronts we basically remained in the area.

 

[CVILLE7111]

I was riding with 110 Truck that night.  We were out getting the meal when the blackout hit.  I remember the LT saying "Let's get back to quarters and try to eat something.  We may not get another chance!"  He was right.  25+ runs, several jobs later.................

 

[68jk09]

42 YEARS AGO.

 

[memory master]

42 YEARS AGO.

As the Dells once sang, "Oh What A Night"

 

[JOR176]

working nights for the NY Telephone Co.

 

[lucky]

It is hard to believe but we actually ran out of six foot hooks in ladder 112 by the end of the next day. We had to go around begging for them from surrounding units.

 

[BoroCall]

I was living in AZ & watched on TV.