July 13, 1977: NYC blackout leads to looting

On this day in 1977, a little after 9:30 p.m., the power went out in most of New York City. It led to widespread looting – and also, perhaps, to the popularity of hip-hop.

The summer of 1977 saw troubled times for New York; the city had just narrowly avoided bankruptcy, and the Son of Sam murderer had been on the loose for a full year.

July 13 was a hot day, and Consolidated Edison couldn’t keep up with the demand – thanks in large part to several lightning strikes on ConEd facilities, but also to shoddy maintenance. Almost the entire city plunged into darkness (some of southern Queens was on a different grid).

Encouraged by some mix of economic malaise, white flight, and heat-related unrest, looters took the city – particularly parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx – by storm. To remove the grates that protected retail stores and bodegas, some people even attached their cars to the metal with a chain and sped off.

As for hip-hop: equipment was expensive, but on this night, it was basically free. Grandmaster Casanova Fly, an early pioneer, later said:

I see this store called the Sound Room that was one of the first audio stores. People are crawling in there and running out with speakers and turntables. I was like, ‘Yo, people are breaking in there anyway — might as well run in and see!’

Across the city, around 4,000 looters were arrested. Two other blackouts, in 1965 and 2003, were in better economic times (and during the day), so crime wasn’t nearly as bad.

Image: unknown photographer; kids playing in a fire hydrant just after the blackout, Bushwick, Brooklyn. Brooklyn Historical Society collection.

Also, a very happy birthday to my father, born this day in 19xx.