NEW YORK (AP) A power outage crippled the tourist-filled heart of Manhattan just as Saturday night Broadway shows were set to go on, sending theater-goers spilling into siren-filled streets, knocking out Times Squares towering electronic screens and bringing subway lines to a near halt.
Electricity was restored to customers and businesses in midtown Manhattan and the Upper West Side by about midnight.
Con Edison CEO John McAvoy said a problem at a substation caused the power failure at 6:47 p.m., affecting 73,000 customers for more than three hours along a 30-block stretch from Times Square to 72nd Street and Broadway, and spreading to Rockefeller Center.
McAvoy said the exact cause of the blackout would not be known until an investigation is completed.
The temperature was in the low 80s as the sun set, but not as steaming as Manhattan can get in July, challenging the citys power grid.
Power went out early Saturday evening at much of Rockefeller Center, reaching the Upper West Side and knocking out traffic lights.
A big cheer went up among Upper West Side residents when power flickered back on at about 10:30 p.m. For hours before that, doormen stood with flashlights in the darkened entrances of upscale apartment buildings along Central Park West, directing residents to walk up flights of stairs to their apartments, with all elevators out.
Police directed traffic at intersections as pedestrians and bikes weaved through the dark.
The outage comes on the anniversary of the 1977 New York City outage that left most of the city without power.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement that although no injuries were reported the fact that it happened at all is unacceptable. He said the state Department of Public Service will investigate.
He said the outage poses a safety risk.
You just cant have a power outage of this magnitude in this city Cuomo said. It is too dangerous, the potential for public safety risk and chaos is too high, we just cant have a system that does that, its that simple at the end of the day.
Most Broadway musicals and plays canceled their Saturday evening shows, including Hadestown, which last month won the Tony Award for best musical. Several cast members from the musical Come From Away held an impromptu performance in the street outside the theater for disappointed audience members.
Emily Totero, 30, planned to bring out-of-town guests to see Moulin Rouge. But once they got to the theater district, they saw the power go out.
You could see all the theater lights across the street, all the marquees went out. Thats what we noticed first, she said.
The outage also hit Madison Square Garden, where Jennifer Lopez was performing Saturday night. Attendees said the concert went dark about 9:30 p.m. in the middle of Lopezs fourth song of the night. The arena was later evacuated. And at Penn Station, officials were using backup generators to keep the lights on.
Both Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts were evacuated.
