by Chris Munzing and Keith Grant
Residents tried to find creative ways to make their way home, while beachgoers found creative places to spend the night in Long Beach. Local fire and police officials worked overtime keeping the city safe, and the Long Beach Medical Center did its best to keep all of its patrons comfortable. The bars were packed, the store shelves were empty, and within hours the excitement was over.
Edward Grant expected to work in Brooklyn late on Thursday, but instead was able to catch a 3:43 train back to Long Beach. The train made it to within yards of Reynolds Channel before suddenly gliding to a halt. As commuters paced the aisle with dead cell phones and conductors tried to maintain some calm, Grant sat quietly in the back with a newspaper and waited.
"The conductors told me we'd be out of there soon. I told him, 'I spent six hours in '65 in a subway in a tunnel. Right now, I'm really comfortable!'" Grant recounted.
While Grant and his fellow commuters eventually jumped from the train and walked home across the Long Beach Bridge, facing nothing more daunting than the ice-hoarding lines at Monarch Beverage, those stuck on later trains weren't as fortunate. Arthur Treglia relaxed on the Long Beach Boardwalk last Friday, but a day earlier the East Rockaway resident, who has worked in downtown Manhattan for about a year, found himself without many options when his 4:15 train from Penn Station stopped before it started.
"I was actually on the train, then everything turned black," said Treglia. He got off the train as fast as he could and went out onto the street. He wasn't alone. "It was a sea of human beings," he said.
At first, Treglia explained, a lot of people feared that another terrorist attack had befallen New York, but when it was finally determined that that wasn't the cause, everyone seemed to calm down. Treglia, however, was hardly pleased. "I had to pay three dollars for a sandwich on the street," he said.
His friend, Chris Mongeluzzi, fared a little better. "I got an M&M ice cream sandwich for a dollar," he said.
Eventually, Treglia, infuriated with his situation, decided to walk home. Refusing to even loosen his tie in the 90-degree heat, he made the long trek across the 59th Street Bridge into Queens, where he finally got through to his father. It took Treglia's father over three hours to get into Queens and retrieve his son.
On his Friday off, Treglia and Mongeluzzi went to the beach to enjoy their day, though Treglia said that the day would've been his whether or not Mayor Michael Bloomberg had decided to essentially close the city to all non-essential personnel. "I was taking today off regardless," Treglia said. "I haven't been here [the beach] in two years."
Arnie and Rita Blickstein of Lynbrook also made the most of "the day after," spending their Friday on the boardwalk. The Blicksteins were home at the time of the blackout and took the opportunity to walk around the neighborhood, greeting their neighbors and popping in on impromptu barbecues. "We were lucky," said Rita. Their son wasn't so lucky. "He walked across the Brooklyn Bridge," she said.
Beachgoers stranded
Hazel O'Brien of Queens was one of hundreds of people who found themselves stranded -- not in the city, but in Long Beach. What she thought would be a day trip to the beach turned into a 28-hour ordeal. When her Thursday-evening train was canceled, O'Brien and her mother made the best of the situation, checking into the Jackson Hotel on Broadway and trying to enjoy their extra time here.
As power slowly returned to the barrier island, O'Brien and her mother enjoyed a nice dinner and a few drinks. "We turned defeat into victory," said O'Brien as she sat outside the Long Beach train station, waiting for a friend to pick her up.
O'Brien was one of many people who went to the Jackson looking for a place to stay on Thursday night. "We were actually worried about people with reservations not showing up," said Ellena Fotinktos, a Jackson employee. "We got a lot of walk-ins, and we were happy to take them in."
Others who were stranded reportedly headed back to the beach for the night, while about 50 crashed on the benches or floors of City Hall. Officials opened the building to anyone who couldn't get home, and barbecuing firefighters gladly provided some food for female -- and a few male -- stranded beachgoers.
Hours earlier, the firefighters had helped pull residents from three elevators that had stopped, and otherwise handled some fairly routine oxygen-assistance calls. A floodlight was set up at the corner of Park Avenue and Long Beach Boulevard to keep the intersection lit, and about 80 firefighters, including six full-timers, stayed on duty at the three firehouses until midnight, when power was back on throughout the city.
"The whole night went rather smoothly," said fire chief Scott Kemins. "We handled it in stride."
As with the firefighters, many local police officers reported to the station as soon as the blackout began. According to Commissioner John Laffey, the department more than tripled its patrols through the night. Summer specials and auxiliary officers were also a big help to the department, as Long Beach was kept safe. "It was a great collective effort," Laffey said. "I was proud of the whole department." As City Manager Harold Porr reported, there was not even a car accident in the city during the emergency.
Impromptu block parties
Power returned to much of the East End around 9 p.m., and cheers throughout the West End greeted the lights coming back on at about 11 p.m. (followed closely by jeers from those who decided that the neighborhood was more fun with the lights out). West Enders had decided that the blackout was an opportunity to turn the area into a big block party. Spontaneous cookouts and barbecues were common, as residents left their homes and took to the relatively empty streets.
"We just stocked up on beer, wine and barbecue," said one man who preferred not to be identified. "Everybody was sitting outside, having a good time. Everybody made the best of it." He also said that The Inn was cooking up hamburgers and handing them out, contributing to the block-party feel.
Two women riding their bikes on Ocean View on Friday had similar sentiments. "We walked around and visited all our West End neighbors," said one of them, who identified herself as Millie. "We had a barbecue and drank until 2 a.m." Her friend, Karen, simply said, "It was great."
Barry Koff, the manager of C-Town, a supermarket in the West End, said that the store lost a few items in the deli due to the lack of power, but otherwise its meat and dairy sections were all safely preserved. "We had plenty of ice," Koff said. "We were only out for four hours."
Koff added that the market's freezers and refrigerated cases never approached a dangerously high temperature, due to the fact that employees made sure the cases stayed closed. "Like your refrigerator at home, if you're not going in and out, you don't lose temperature," he said.
Andy Fackler, of Associated Food Stores on East Park Avenue, said his store reacted the same way. "We packed everything we could on ice," he said. "Most of the stuff didn't spoil, and the stuff that did spoil, we threw out." Fackler said that the store lost some of its milk and fish products.
Some employees of Radio Shack on East Park Avenue were going to head home until manager Garrick Huie advised them against it, telling them that there would soon be a large crowd to help. "It was crowded," Huie said. "We had about four associates working, and we had a crowd of about 10 people at a time in the store."
Batteries, radios and flashlights were the most popular items, according to Huie. He commended the crowd of customers for their calm demeanor, though he did say that a few were a bit frantic.
A single day; many different sentiments and stories to tell. Whether it was spent enjoying a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood with a beverage in hand, or sleeping beside a co-worker on an unforgiving Manhattan sidewalk, the Blackout of 2003 was an event that will not soon be forgotten.
