The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Forty years ago today, New York City was plunged into darkness. The city has certainly seen longer blackouts in its history but none as violent or as deadly in its effects than the Blackout of 1977. The deteriorating city, in the midst of a withering heat wave, was ill-equipped for such emergencies. Hundreds of stores… Read More
REVIEW The evening of July 13, 1977, will be remembered as one of the worst in New York City history, a catastrophic electrical blackout that plunged an already-weakened city into terrifying anarchy. Meanwhile, up on the top floors of the World Trade Center, they were having a party. The thrilling new documentary Blackout — making its… Read More
Photo above courtesy Drew Dies/Flickr He has a cool set of pictures from that day here. Today is the tenth-year anniversary of the Northeast Blackout of 2003 which shut down power for most of New York City (and much of the Northeast) for almost 24 hours, with some areas experiencing outages well into the second day. I… Read More
Here’s a few images — many of them quite well-known — of the New York City blackout, which occurred 35 years ago. By 9:36 pm on July 13, 1977, the entire Con Edison power system for the city shut down, the devastating endpoint of a chain reaction which began with a lightening strike at an… Read More
In looking around for information on the blackout yesterday, I stumbled into one of my favorite sites Snopes, the debunking place for urban legend and Internet rumors. They have quite a selection of articles relating to New York City history, dispelling local myths and pointing out some of the city’s crazier moments. I put some… Read More
ABOVE: Liberty keeps her lights on during the blackout of November 9, 1965Photos courtesy Life Magazine, via the Blackout History Project Forty-five years ago, during the 5pm rush hour, the entire American Northeast and parts of Canada were attacked by Unidentified Flying Objects from outer space who used their intergalactic powers to cause an electrical… Read More
Here’s some photographs to illustrate some of the topics of this weeks Bowery Boys podcast. You can hear the podcast below, or go to iTunes and subscribe to us for free! Many more pics can be found here: The infamous response to mayor Abe Beame’s pleas for money, two years before the blackout catastrophy Even… Read More
Its gonna get hot this summer in New York City. Pretty obviously July is the worst month for those in business suits, but as bad as it gonna get, consider this: The hottest day in New York City history was on July 9, 1936, where it reached a staggering 106 degrees. Pair that with the… Read More