Monthly Archives: August 2003

Blackout NYC

Saturday, August 16th, 2003
The power came back on shortly after 9 PM. I think the Lower East Side was one of the last areas to get its power back.  An extended cheer erupted on the street as well as in my kitchen. I am very happy to have my fan back.
Click here to see more blackout photos.
Tompkins Square Park the morning after. I wasn’t there late enough to see it get this wild, but it looks like the single trash can burning scrap wood turned into a giant trash bonfire. The mayor did recommend that people keep cool in bars. From the amount of drinking I saw on Thursday night, they took his advice seriously. I have some video of the park bacchanal, but it will take some work to process it for the web.
Click here to see more blackout photos.
Thanks go to a couple of civilians who took it upon themselves to clean up after the revelers. Other civilians heroes were the spontaneous traffic directors who stood in the middle of intersections and bravely attempted to negotiate passages. The press of motor and foot traffic was tremendous in midtown just after the power went out, and they bravely stepped into the breach.
Hitching a ride on a bus, Houston Street and Avenue A.
Several Con Ed trucks plus a large portable generator surrounded the substation at Fifth and A.
Gas fired pizza ovens and the relative imperishability of the ingredients brought a lot of business to pizza joints. This line extended back about another half block. I was too hot and lazy to get a better perspective.
Click to see larger photo
By late afternoon Tompkins Park’s central lawn had a high density occupancy of sunbathers. Click
to see larger photo.
This woman took the opportunity to write "No More Prisons" on one of the paths in Tompkins. Other women of a pro-prison set of mind gave her a hard time. She decided to amplify what she meant by crossing out "prisons" and adding "sleeping?"
"No More Sleeping?" Is this the birth of a movement.
 

[avenuea]

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DIM BULB

Saturday, August 16th, 2003
POWER OUTAGE TRACED TO DIM BULB IN WHITE HOUSE — The Tale of The Brits Who Swiped 800 Jobs From New York, Carted Off $90 Million, Then Tonight, Turned Off Our Lights- By Greg Palast via MeFi

"It was so, so conveniently timed….just days to weeks before a final vote on Bush’s energy plan and Clear Skies Initiative…both unpopular, and both designed to dramatically overempower and expand the fossil-fuel-driven electrical power generating industry"
What is Spc. Derek Lawrence Peterson doing these days?

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Tree Ring - Radical History

Saturday, August 16th, 2003
Click to see full report.
Someone has created a timeline of radical history to correspond to the annual rings of this American Elm that was cut down recently. Avenue B near Tenth Street on the East side of Tompkins Square Park. Read full account.
Click to see full report.
1931 is the earliest date in the center of the stump. "Dutch elm disease reaches the United States."
Click to see full report.
1953 - Ethel and Julius Rosenberg executed.
Click to see full report.
2001 - Loss of rights through Patriot
Act.

[AvenueB]

Filed in Avenue B, East Village, Ecology, History, Nature, Photos, Street Art, Word on the Street | Permalink | Comments (0)

Blackout in Tompkins Square

Thursday, August 14th, 2003
Click here to see more blackout photos.
Dancing around the fire, Tompkins Square Park. See
more here.
Click here to see more blackout photos.
Here’s a few video captures from Tompkins Square on the night of the blackout. Getting decent frame captures is a laborious ordeal using my Snappy device. This frame was illuminated by someone’s flash, giving me a fairly sharp image. But the images come out much grainier than they appear on the television monitor. Out of about 80 attempted captures I’ve gotten three images somewhat worth showing. I even tried photographing the monitor with my digital camera, but the exposure time of the camera gives me two or more frames resulting in a blurry mess.
Click here to see more blackout photos.
This guy was getting cheers for his fire jumping prowess.
Click here to see more blackout photos.
He takes a bow. Scroll down to see the morning after of this bacchanal.

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NYC in the Blackout

Thursday, August 14th, 2003
I’m putting these photos up shortly after midnight on the 16th, but posting them to the blog dates they were taken.

I was at 101st Street and West End Avenue when the power went out at 4:11 PM. I was lucky I could easily have been stuck on the subway at that time. I talked to a couple of young women covered in soot, who said that was what had happened to them. By the time I reached these skaters in Central Park my feet were aching in my worn out sneakers.

The mobile hot dog vendors in Central Park, independent of grid power, had long lines of people anxious to eat anything.
Why these clocks stopped a full forty minutes after the power went out is a mystery. It was around 6 when I passed by. 52nd and Madison.
Waldorf hotel workers forced onto the street by the blackout.
Second Avenue around 50th Street. So many people were walking home that they took to the street when they could.

Sunset, looking west on Houston Street near Essex Street. I have some video footage from later that night of a wild scene in Tompkins Square Park. I’ll have some still captures from it up soon.
 

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Flying Shrub

Wednesday, August 13th, 2003
The air is thick, foul and lacking in oxygen. No pix of mine today are worth posting. Instead I bring you this manufactured absurdity.

Flying shrub action figure. $39.99

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