On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 10:22 AM, Rob Campbell
wrote:
The powerless are primarily most everything below 34th St. in Manhattan and most of Staten Island. The black out zone is much darker than one would expect. It's very dark. You don't see people 1/4 of the way down a block. When you walk down a cross street you feel like you're going to a place of permanent darkness. You can't really tell the difference between a distant flashlight and a distant headlight. Only big intersections have traffic cops. They have flares on some intersections to remind drivers to look for pedestrians crossing but it feels like its pretty much a crap shoot. Only a small handful of restaurants have generators and they only run them for a few hours. Other places that are open have only candles which is nice but you only see them when you get close. Some bodegas are open but you only realize it when you're right on top of them - they don't bother with any lights at all they just stand behind the register in total darkness. It is scary. It is the entire downtown of Manhattan. Everything below midtown. When you're down there you keep thinking you're in a part of a neighborhood you've never been in but it's just the darkness. That you'll turn a corner and it will be like it was but then it's not. It's amazing how much we identify light with life. It feels abandoned but it's not. It seems to dead or very dormant but it's not. Its darker than the woods or the country in that sense. Darkness where it's not supposed to be.
On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 10:30 AM, Sue Campbell wrote:
The fascinating element of this storm is that nature took over again. So it is forest or coast again without the lights of electricity... the exuberant use of electricity that helped cause the storm in the first place. From the ecologists' perspective, this is one of the storms that will finally push people out of their apathy and denial. It's inevitable in that way. And fascinating that NYC is the epicenter, the city and the people who have the power to radicalize and shape culture globally to see nature and urban life in a new way. They are already do. It's just now the game is changing faster.
On Fri., Nov 2, 2012 at 7:16 PM, Rob Campbell,robcnyc@yahoo.com> wrote:
Back in the dark.
It's all out Hemingway now.
They're putting lights back on so now it's a hunt a safari to track down the darkness.
Cars and trucks are like huge dumb animals here.
Photo credit: Rob Campbell, Nov. 2, 2012 "Charging Station at E 7th St. and 1st Ave. Manhattan"
1 comment:
Certainly was a fascinating unintended experiment, like New Yorkers became lab rats with the rest of us seem how they (you) do in long periods of darkness.
I believe it would be darker in cities than on the wilderness, because large buildings and smog block out light but so does light pollution from parts of NYC not in the darkness. When I go backpacking in the Sierras, I have trouble falling asleep it's so light out, even after exhausting climbing days. = Ironic, then, how you'd have been better off in total wilderness than in NYC during the blackout.
Post a Comment