Where were you when the Blackout of 2003 hit? I suspect it will be a question on everyone’s mind for, oh, let’s say the next week or so. I happened to be working at Mikey’s Hookup when the lights dimmed and our computers shuddered, and then finally gave up. For a good 10 minutes the lights just flickered before fully giving up the ghost, at which point everyone just sort of headed outside to see what was going on…

There was a good deal of commotion at first. A touch of panic from some people. The landlord of the building where I work was convinced that he saw a low flying plane (nevermind the fact that we’re 10 minutes away from LaGuardia airport), and over the next hour or so several people seemed convinced that the cause was some sort of terrorist attack.

Most of us, though, just took the oppportunity to gather on the street and enjoy the quiet. A number of local restaurants pulled out their charcoal grills and cooked up dogs and burgers. Sparky’s, the hot dog joint on North 5th, started passing out free ice cream, since it was going to melt anyway. Some folks brought some beers by the shop and we sat outside and relaxed, telling the occasional customer that we had just sold out of D batteries. Note to retailers: These days nobody EVER needs D batteries — until a blackout. Stock and price accordingly.

Later in the evening Tania and I tried to go meet a friend at a local bar, Union Pool. I didn’t find him there, so we ended up back on the stoop of our apartment building, with a dozen or so of our neighbors. They’d been sitting out there very near since the start of the blackout, and had brought down juice and mixers, wine and vodka, and turned the event into an impromptu stoop party.

We brought down our last few ice cubes, a couple of beers from the fridge, and a bottle of Tanqueray that had been in the freezer, unopened, for quite some time. We sat out and talked about the day, and other inanities. Josephine, a woman who has lived on our block most of her life and who must be in her seventies, came by, and joined our revelry.

Eventually from across the street we heard the horns of the brass-band ensemble that plays all the time at the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel street festival (a once-a-year extravaganza that turns our street into a mess of carnival rides and games and sausage dripppings). They played all the Italian hits, including a couple of attempts at the Godfather theme. When its the street fair I can’t stand it, but on this night it sounded great.

The sense of community that the whole thing brought out in everyone was sort of inspiring — makes you wish that it would happen more often, even though that’s the last thing you really want. Though my many power hungry habits– email, web, tv, dvds, video games, cell phones and refrigerated treats–might have suffered, my pleasure being a New yorker did not.