Friends, This is long, unedited and personal, and only partially about community gardens, so don't feel you have to read it. I'm just sending it out for those folks who want to know what one of the 50 million folks who experienced the blackout felt about it.
This was actually the third NYC big blackout that I've experienced - in 1965, I remember looking out the a window of the hebrew school that I attended a few afterschool afternoons a week, and watching the lights on the Empire State building go out, floor by floor - and then watching the lights flicker in our classroom. We were sent home with packets of Chanukah candles and matches. It was fall, 6:30 pm, and upper Broadway, usually full of light and noise, was dark except for car lights and buses, whose artificially lit interiors ( what an old term -artificial lighting !) seemed eerie. My mother had filled the bathtub and sinks with water (refugee wisdom) as we lived then, above the 6th floor (the height above which water does not naturally flow from our acqueduct system and has to be helped by electrical pumps) we could flush our toilets, have water to cook and wash with. The old upperwest side apartment that we lived in, then, was awash with candlelight, our having them on hand for sabbath and those special dinners when candles were appropriate. (Can you imagine, a dinner without the television on, where the main attraction was the food and conversation? When people actually "dressed" for dinner, because dinner itself, and the company was considered important? ) In fact, like many European refugee families, we kept the television - viewed as a disreputable piece of equipment in the closet, in those days - like the vacuum cleaner. It took a major event, like political assasinations or the Watergate hearings, for example, for the tube to be left out for a few days. Our nickname for it was the "liar box." Right after Ed Sullivan, or a special show, it went right back in the closet, and never on school nights. My son, now a teenager, was raised with Sesame Street, but I still feel that maybe my folks were right on that one. The apartment was so old, that we still had a gas wall fixture in the livingroom that had not been electrified with the others , so with coaxing, a new wick, and a globe from one of the candlsticks, we had both gas and candlelight in the livingroom for a little after-dinner chambermusic. The building was lousy with musicians - with Broadway & the Concert Halls closed, we had enough adults to play the Beethoven Septet and Schubert Octet. Borrowing the A-Clarinet of one of the adults ( I only had a school lent Bb for band, then) I sightread the adagio of the Mozart clarinet quintet for the first time with a string quartet before being called into the kitchen to wash, "and not break" dishes with the other kids. Before bed, we wallked up the stairs to the roof and saw the stars - in those days, the remaining smokestack industries and the light from our buildings made them all but invisible. School was cancelled the next day - but the power was on in the afternoon. Somehow, electric light was less magical. The second blackout in 1977 found me behind the bar in an upper east side gin mill. We bought out the candles from a hardware store across the street, and lit them when it started to get too dark. The cash registers were mechanically cranked open, no credit cards, and we kept serving as long as the ice and beer stayed cold. As it was summer, we emptied out after a few hours. As I was the new guy, it was my job, to "put out those g-ddamned candles." On the way home, the traffic in front of the old Roosevelt Hospital was jammed - an old lady threw an old cop's whistle out the window at me, ordering me, in effect, to direct traffic, which I did for about three hours until a cop showed up, but not until an emergency oil delivery was made to the hospital. While there wasn't looting in Hell's Kithen ( too many shopkeepers on ninth avenue, sitting on chairs all night with rifles and pistols) many appliance stores were cleaned out to the walls. Ambulances kept running all night, carrying cops and looters cut by plate glass. The detrius, fires and general bad feeling from that blackout ( much of Bushwick in Brooklyn was devestated) frightened us all. The joke at the time was, " have you picked out your TV yet - it's only a matter of time until the next blackout!" And in 1978 - 25 years ago - the experts, the government and all of the suits insisted that a new blackout would be impossible! Right! Hmmmm..... Last Thursday, I had just gotten back, my suit drenched with sweat, from an interview for a job a lawfirm. Having placed shoe trees immediately in my "good shoes", the suit carefully hung to dry, along with my bow-tie, I got in my garden clothes, ready to harvest some tomatoes, basil and peppers for dinner. My son, just home from his summer job, was on the computer, and then the lights went out. The transistor radio went on, and said, and I don't know how they knew this so fast, that it wasn't terrorists, but a major blackout. We ran downstairs to get D-Batteries, two more flashlights, candles ( blue Santeria candles in tumblers were all that were left) three bags of ice for the bathtub. At that point, the telephone exchange near us hadn't burnt out, so we knew that my wife the nurse would be stuck at the hospital she works at overnight where there would be auxilliary power. Hundreds of thousands of people, like on September 11th were all slowly, peaceably walking home, trying to get lifts out of town as the subways and major commuter rail links had gone out of service. But this was different, because while Sept 11th had only affected one small area of town severely ( the area below Canal Street) the rest of the town had water, electricity, transportation - all eerily normal, with helicopters and military jets overhead, and of course, no truck deliveries for a few days. Once New Yorkers all took a deep breath and realized that in the words of Walt Kelly's Pogo (note: a Possum character in a now defunct, but beloved comic strip) "That we has met the enemy, and he is us," and that some guy in a short sleeved shirt with a tie, pocket protector and ballpoint pens had screwed up instead of somebody malevolent, we coped - and mostly with good humor. I headed to the garden where folks had brought extra candles, set up a few barbecue grills in the back, to cook the meat that would be spoiled in their apartments, and discovered that most of the nearby blocks had turned into mini block parties. Stoop sitting, basically, folks who brough chairs out to sit on in front of their tenements on hot evenings, or sat on the steps is largely extinct in US cities. But with the loss of airconditioning, water ( in tall buildings) television and non-battery powered radios, people came out and actually started to talk to their neighbors. I kid you not - it reminded me of when I grew up in this city, when during the summertime, most folks were out sitting on their stoops talking, or listening to the ball game, because it was too hot indoors. I'm pleased to say that I saw alot of seniors out in the streets - folks had knocked on their doors and were looking out for them, inviting them into the relative cool of the streets, where at least there was a breeze. Not a few were carried down by neighbors in chairs. Nice. Now, we're used to this kind of neighborliness in the Clinton Community Garden, and many folks partake of it - we have 4,000 keys out in the neighborhood for our third of an acre space. But to see it open up, with folks bringing down beer, soda, and the contents of their refrigerators that would spoil to share, in city blocks so dense that many people don't really know their neighbors, was amazing. The garden stayed open later than it usually does, but when the candles started flickering out, most left, just before midnight. And in the 90's heat, we watered more than a few folks down with out hoses. Blessedly, this time, we had limited looting in Brooklyn - a sneaker and mobile phone store - and about 20 arrests. Maybe Sept. 11th changed some behaviors, or maybe everyone has enough TV's now - To only have enought closet space to put the TV's in with the rest of the appliances. Best wishes and thinking of the folks in Detroit who still don't have "juice" Adam Honigman Volunteer, <A HREF="http://www.clintoncommunitygarden.org/";>Clinton Community Garden</A> With the blackout, some stores were selling everything they had that could spoil - about 30 blocks up from where I live, Zabar's a gourmet deli, took to selling most of their perishable stock on the sidewalk in front of the store, handing free bread out to those folks who didn't have cash - all the ATMs were out of order too. After having gotten our emergency stuff ( as well as a few gallons of water, just in case) into the apartment - I got the dogs downstairs for their walk ( carrying our 17 year old Scottie, Butch who despises going on paper) and back....leaving << Subj: [cg] Re: community_garden digest, Vol 1 #1516 - 5 msgs Date: 8/15/03 6:09:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Don Boekelheide) Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi, all, As the Quakers say, I'm holding community garden friends in New York, Toronto and other affected cities in the light through the blackout. Well, one bright spot, community gardens can show their worth as a source of food - and as a place where people can link up in a crisis. I fondly remember the last huge blackout in New York, back in '77, when I was a kid from California backpacking around. My girlfriend, a fellow traveler from Denmark, and I put the darkness to very good use. You never know what good can come from a crisis... I did hear that the Iraqis are sympathetic if not overly worried, since this is a mild dose of what they have been living with over the summer, only Baghdad temps are 20 Farenheit degrees _hotter_ than NYC, if you can imagine, in the 120 range! (pushing 50 C). On NPR, a reporter passed along some of their helpful hints, like wrapping up in wet sheets and sleeping on the roof. And forget living in tall buildings... Hang in there. I'd ask our local power company, Duke Power, to send some help, but we all remember what happened when they 'helped' California a couple years back. We're still enjoying the fallout from that. What's that Arnie says, 'Have a nice day...'? Don Boekelheide (sympathetic in) Charlotte, NC PS do check out Mars, it is amazing. In the southeastern sky about 9-10 PM. Should be a great view without the city lights >> ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
