New York City's Times Square gets interesting during the July 1977 power failure.
Photo: Mike Zens / Corbis View Slideshow 
1977: Lightning strikes a Consolidated Edison substation along the Hudson River, tripping two circuit breakers and setting off a chain of events that results in a massive power failure. The entire city of New York is blacked out, parts of it for more than 24 hours.
Although there were a number of fail-safes in the system that should have prevented such a catastrophic failure, bad luck (multiple lightning strikes that seemed to find Con Ed utilities), operator mistakes and some substandard facilities maintenance triggered a chain reaction throughout the system that eventually crippled the biggest generator serving New York City, plunging the Big Apple into darkness at around 9:30 p.m.
The blackout couldn't have come at a worse time for a city that was already down on its luck. New York was in the midst of a financial crisis, teetering at the edge of bankruptcy, when the lights went out. The rioting and looting that followed the blackout marked one of the lowest points in New York history.
In all, 1,616 stores were either looted or damaged during the blackout. More than a thousand fires were set, 14 of them resulting in multiple alarms. And in the biggest mass arrest in city history, 3,776 people were thrown in the jug. The jails were so overcrowded that the overflow had to be held in precinct basements and other makeshift gaols.
A congressional study later put the damage caused by looting and vandalism at $300 million.
(Source: Wikipedia)
