On Saturday at 6.47pm, parts of Midtown Manhattan and the West Side went dark.
A little more than three hours later, Con Edison announced that power was being restored.
On a steamy July night in 1977, exactly 42 years ago, the same thing happened: New York City plunged into darkness, but that time the city was left without power for 25 hours.
It became a defining event. Looting and arson spread through the streets, resulting in 3,800 arrests and millions of dollars worth of damage.
