The building where the lights never dim.
The lights went out-and then went back on in a matter of seconds. More accurately, they merely dimmed momentarily. I was in my studio, having just finished my daily radio program in the 50-story McGraw-Hill Building at Rockefeller Center. I was gathering up my papers just after 4 p.m., when everything switched to generator power. In the hallways, alarms were ringing, announcements were being made. Much of the power in the offices had gone out, and the building's elevator service went down-along with the electricity in much of the Northeast and parts of Canada. But inside studio 5 and all of the other studios, the air conditioning was blasting, the lights were glistening, the boards were humming and people were on the air. Our hermetically sealed world was business as usual-and in the media business, a crisis is business as usual-even as the world outside had gone dark.
That was par for the course throughout much of several blocks and avenues that compose Rockefeller Center, which, unbeknownst to most of the sweltering masses, stood as a bright and shining (and well-cooled) Emerald City during much of the blackout. We'd all soon learn about the creaky power grid system, and the president-finally emerging from the shadows, as he eventually did on 9/11-even said that it needed to be updated, though he and Congressional Republicans had nixed a $350 million package to fix the grid, after experts had warned for years that this would happen.
That creaky grid might be reminiscent of that of a third world country, as New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Bill Clinton's energy secretary, told CNN. But the true seats of power in our culture-Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and its Fox News, AOL Time Warner and its CNN, General Electric and its NBC, and all of the other big and small radio and tv companies in the media gulch that is Rockefeller Center-stood as paragons of first-world supremacy, lit to the rafters throughout much of this event. And not solely because many of these companies have their own generators for their media operations; the street lights in Rockefeller Center curiously stayed on through much of the night too, apparently powered by generators as well. The streets and plazas of the United Nations and the New York Stock Exchange might have gone dark, but the almighty television business is a power center that intended to remain live at all costs.
And what area do you suppose gained full electrical service by 6 a.m. on Friday, before most other parts of Manhattan? A "few blocks in midtown below Central Park," as was reported Friday morning on the ancient radios that became our lifelines for more than 24 hours. In other words: Rockefeller Center.
I didn't realize any of that on Thursday night, when, shortly after the blackout occurred, I walked down 36 flights of stairs in the McGraw Hill Building and down the 35 blocks to my home at Union Square. Contrary to the sappy media reports about how we all were so nauseatingly neighborly, I witnessed some pretty heated altercations between people in cars-which were going nowhere-and people on the streets, who were practically climbing over vehicles on Third Ave. Many were apprehensive, while some were pretty freaked out, asking a lot of questions. Was it a terrorist attack? Was this the first stage, soon to be followed by the dirty bomb and total pandemonium? With the majority of cellphones not functioning and most home phones requiring electricity, communication with loved ones was pretty much out the window.
My boyfriend and I followed the plan we drew up after the World Trade Center attacks, as advised by the Department of Homeland Security: Call a mutual relative where you could leave messages for one another. I called David's parents up in Buffalo and left a message on voicemail-only to realize later that they hadn't gotten the message-their lights went out too. So much for all of our 9/11 preparedness. If this wasn't a terrorist attack, I told myself, it certainly was the blueprint for one.
Despite all the discomfort and concerns, this was still New York. I was amused by the gay men who took over at intersections, directing traffic and grooving on giving the hand sign for "stop" to oncoming traffic and passersby. (Thank God for control queens!) The oddest thing I witnessed was at the intersection of 23rd and 3rd at about 6 p.m., when I looked up at Synergy Fitness on the second story of a corner building. There, overlooking the thousands of sweat-drenched, power-deprived people and the onslaught of cars and trucks on the street, were several women on StairMasters doing their regular exercise routine. They were the types you see on the Stairmaster in their spandex outfits 17 hours a day, and no blackout was going to stop them, even in 85 degree heat with no air conditioning. But my first thought was: Do they, like CNN, have generators for their Stairmasters? How were those machines running?
Nevermind-I had to move on. I eventually got to my building, a 20-story high-rise with neither electricity nor water (electrical pumps push water through the building). This was the status quo well into Friday night, as that portion of the East Side was one of the last places to see the light. The entire city was lucky to be lit by that point, it turns out-after Mayor Bloomberg had promised on Thursday night that the lights would be on in a matter of hours-as a war erupted between the mayor and upstate officials over who would get the juice first. Bloomberg threatened a lawsuit and the upstaters wimped out.
Back at Rockefeller Center, none of this mattered. I got on a bus on Friday morning at 7 and chugged along Third Ave. back to the studio. At 50th St., I looked west toward the glittering Emerald City in the distance. The Rockefeller Center side of Fifth Ave. was awash in light, with Banana Republic's windows gleaming brightly and the massive floodlights on the RCA building blasting up to the heavens. The other side of Fifth Ave. was juiceless, lifeless, including St. Patrick's Cathedral. (A commentary on the Catholic Church's waning power in New York over the past few decades? And Fox and CNN's rise to power? Cardinal Egan may have been deservedly sweating his ass off-unless of course he and the Church have their own generators, too-but Roger Ailes and Paula Zahn were doing just fine.)
There was something downright cruel about Radio City Music Hall's having all of its garish neon lit up at that hour of the morning, while the rest of us were roasting in the dark hinterlands downtown for much of the rest of the day. They could have done it all low-key-not flaunting the floodlights and flashing neon, even as the power was quietly restored-but I suppose that wouldn't have telegraphed to us all just exactly who's really in charge these days.