This was the day of the blackout hence the entirely black strip. The blackout was pretty fun, actually it was a lot of fun. I was at work and the light flickered a few times. Then it flickered and the lights turned out and the first thing I could think was “Hmmm, that’s not good.” Then around the office I could hear everyone yelling “Save! Everyone save their work!” I remember calling my mom in Boston asking them if everything was okay which sounds really funny to them since there was absolutely nothing wrong with their electricity.
Some people at work stayed there for a while then crashed at one of their Manhattan apartments. Some people from New Jersey got a ride from people going through the Holland tunnel and were watching cable TV by the time they got home. I met up with a friend who I crashed with that night, but not before walking several miles that night. I ended up walking to Times Square with a flashlight, making a pitstop at a candle-lit deli and heading to a bar for a beer. Crazy thing was the people at Grand Central Station out on the sidewalk. Not many people can say that they’ve seen Times Square without any lights (save for emergency lights), but I put myself amongst some of those proud few.
The coolest thing was seeing how people were helping each other out on that night. Some people were selling water, but others were just handing it out to people on the street because it was pretty hot outside. Some restaurants set up outside so people could eat. Some helpful New Yorkers directed traffic to make some sense of the roads and stuff like that. It’s great that there wasn’t a huge rush of looting or major violence of any type. Times like that I think that New York still gets a bad rap from people who don’t live there.
By the time I walked home to Brooklyn the following day I had electricity so it wasn’t any big deal. I now know basically how to walk home from Manhattan, but I think I took a few extra detours that were completely unnecessary. Problem being that the walkway on the Manhattan bridge doesn’t lead directly onto Flatbush like the road does which is what threw me off.
I hate when a sidewalk just stops alltogether. I encountered this problem on my way to the library once. I was riding my bike next to the sidewalk. Pretty soon, the sidewalk disappeared. And it was a busy street. After a while, I think even the BIKE LANE was gone, so I was riding my bike in the dirt and an area that I don’t know whether or not it is there for a reason. Let’s just say, I am glad I wasn’t walking, because that was a long bike ride. I would have taken a different route, if it weren’t for the fact that that road was the most direct way there as far as I knew, and I didn’t know any other routes there other than going by my school, which is like going around a playground to the back and THEN walking into it vs. walking straight through it to the center.