Remembering the city-wide blackout of 2003
Photos by Herman Yung
August 14, 2003. A memorable day for me for a few reasons. I won't get into them all, but one of the main ones obviously is that on this day in 2003, I went through my first city-wide blackout. I was 16 at the time and I remember being quite afraid to go outside. The city was still relatively new to me at the time and there was no way I was going to go outside and face looters (as I was told by my parents -- they experienced an entirely different NYC blackout).
In hindsight, the blackout was generally peaceful. It was hot, people were confused, and nobody quite knew if it was a terrorist attack or not (9/11 was still fresh in people's minds). I remember people huddled around a van on 28th Street listening to the radio.
Anyway, if it were to happen again today, I think I'd get myself involved a little differently. Gothamist has a few more photos but the ones shown here are my own from that day along 6th Avenue.
