20 Year Anniversary of the Blackout

[Grapes]

Ok I’m going to show my age here especially since ross10019 said he had to walk 27 stories of stairs in Manhattan to his office. I had to scroll to the initial thread because I was only 10 during the blackout and my father worked as a creative director in advertising on Madison Avenue. We lived in New Caanan , Connecticut at the time.

However this is the blackout I remember:
On November 9, 1965, at approximately 5:27 p.m., electricity went out all the way from Ontario to NYC and Buffalo, to the eastern border of New Hampshire. Everything in the Northeast came to a complete stop.

[Grapes]

Oh man…

I was in my 27th floor office in Manhattan, on 54th and Third, when it happened. Had to walk down 27 flights, realized I forgot my house keys, walked back up, and then back down. Once I got home, I had to walk up 40 floors to my studio apartment, which I was living in with my wife as we were childless at the time.

Before heading home though, since it was the middle of the day, a bunch of young lawyers got together at PJ Clarke’s, a terrific little bar just at the corner, and we partied for hours because they were giving out beer in high-volume since it was all going to get warm. Dejeanneret on this forum was there. What a memory.

There were street parties all over Manhattan that lasted until the wee hours of the morning. But after PJ Clarke’s I went home to my lovely wife and we enjoyed a candlelight dinner and a bottle of wine together. Lovely.

I don’t recall the 2003 blackout. However we lived in Connecticut during the 1965 blackout and my father worked in Manhattan at the time.
I even remember PJ Clarke’s. I worked one day at my father’s advertising company, Gaynor & Ducas. Still have the $1 us cheque. I was treated to PJ Clarke’s for lunch.

Thanks for jogging my memory ross10919. Cheers

[Invictus]

I was at the hockey rink with a bunch of Swede's.
I was really young and only recall it happening, not that it lasted for two days lol.

[Belexus75]

Lol… I do remember this… I was at work, about to leave early to go to place called Blacks to pick up photographs for work…. Then everything turned black…. Amount of stars over Toronto that night was unreal

[senryu]

Lol… I do remember this… I was at work, about to leave early to go to place called Blacks to pick up photographs for work…. Then everything turned black…. Amount of stars over Toronto that night was unreal

Conrad Black's?

[Belexus75]

Conrad Black's?

Lol.. used to be store called blacks… they used to develop photography and sell everything photography related….

[forsbergfan]

I was actually in NYC that day for a friend's wedding. Was in the car driving on the way back to Montreal and I found it interesting that the traffic lights were out. Thought nothing of it and only when I got back to MTL did I see on the news what was happening.

[Feenom]

I also am blacking out on the Blackout. Probably was outside enjoying the weather, blacking out.

[Pit Bulls]

I was working on a wildfire in Kenora ON when the blackout happened. Fortunately, the west side of Ontario is on a separate hydro grid from the eastern side (I believe the grid border is east of Marathon ON) so we never lost power.

The unfortunate thing about the outage was all our GIS data was stored in servers in Guelph ON so we had no access to our GIS data to make our maps. The solution? We simply went old school and made them by hand by flying the fire in a helicopter and drawing the boundary of the fire on a map on our lap.