Summer of Sam Revisited: The 1977 Blackout
Thirty years ago tonight, the lights went out in New York City. Unlike the
placid blackout of 2003, the 1977 blackout plunged a weary, wary city into
inky mayhem. Fires burned in Bushwick. Looters tore into Crown Heights. A
significant chunk of Broadway was ablaze. Damages went into the hundreds
of millions. And no one got shot. In a special issue on the blackout
published on August 1, 1977, New York's Thomas Plate wrote about what the
cops did and didn't do that dark night.
Read entire article at New York