July 13: When the city went dark
On July 13, 1977, a blackout plunged New York City into darkness and chaos. Tonight's film: Cloverfield (2008).
July 13, 1977, a Wednesday night. A sticky New York summer; the heat had been sitting on the city for weeks, and people were trying to sleep with fans and open windows. At 8:37 PM a bolt of lightning hit the Buchanan South substation along the Hudson River. Two circuit breakers tripped, the backup never kicked in, and within minutes Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, much of Brooklyn and Staten Island went dark. For twenty-five hours. A whole city you would never have expected to simply stop.
The difference from the earlier 1965 blackout is that this time people did not gather in the streets to look after each other as neighbors. Something in the air had snapped. New York in 1977 was on the floor economically, nearly bankrupt, the public’s trust in the system long gone, and a serial killer who called himself “Son of Sam” had the city terrified. When the streetlights went out, the dark did not scare people off, it pulled them down to the street. That first night more than 1,600 stores were looted, more than a thousand fires were set, and 3,776 people were arrested, the largest number of arrests in a single day in New York’s history. Bushwick burned the hardest, whole blocks in flame, and firefighters could barely reach them because of the abandoned cars clogging the streets. Mayor Abraham Beame called it the Night of Terror.
It is funny how you remember things. For me this story was never really about the power cut, it was about the night a city suddenly lost control of itself. I grew up in a former Soviet republic, shortly before the regime change, and although the circumstances were different, I know that feeling, when the institutions you rely on simply stop working. When that happens you close the door and look for a refuge. For me it became science fiction.
Now imagine that same city, only a bolt of lightning did not hit the substation. Something else happened, something that would not fit into the evening news. From there it is one step to Cloverfield.
Cloverfield is a handheld, found footage monster movie that opens at a farewell party in Manhattan and watches something attack the city out of nowhere. Matt Reeves directed it, J.J. Abrams produced it, Drew Goddard wrote the script. They made it for $25 million and it earned $172 million worldwide; its January opening weekend of $41 million was a record at the time. The film does not pretend to be more than it is: the point is that you are there, among a desperate crew of civilians who are not heroes, just trying to get across the Brooklyn Bridge to find their people.
Honestly, the camera movement does cause motion sickness, I am not exaggerating, and the characters’ first half hour, a going-away party you barely want to sit through while waiting for anything to happen, turned a lot of people off. I almost gave up on the first watch too. But if you lean into it, there is something in it that few monster films say out loud: that feeling when a city you know simply stops, and you have no idea why. Just like in 1977, only this time there is a monster in the middle of the story.
Cloverfield is not perfect. The ending stays open, and the secrecy built around it, the marketing myth that grew up around Abrams, is more tiring now than exciting. But it caught the essential thing: a city in the dark that cannot defend itself. I think I like it because it reminds me that chaos rarely comes from where you expect.
I know, today was long too, like always. Switch off the news, forget for an hour the bad headlines the algorithm keeps pushing at you. Tonight, press play.
What else could have been tonight
Something happened in 1919 too, worth pulling up on this date: the British airship R34 finished the first round trip across the Atlantic by air. It took off from East Fortune in Scotland on July 2, was 634 feet long, carried a crew of about thirty, and under Major George H. Scott landed in Mineola, Long Island, after 108 hours and 12 minutes. It flew back on July 10 and landed at Pulham in Norfolk on July 13. It was the first time any aircraft made the full round trip. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) drinks from that era: a dieselpunk world of giant airships, the whole film Kerry Conran’s nostalgia fantasy for the 1930s serials. It cost $70 million and earned $58 million, so it was a financial flop, but it became a cult film and rightly so, because it was the first feature shot almost entirely on digital backlot stages.
If you lean toward music, July 13, 1985 was Live Aid. Bob Geldof and Midge Ure organized it, on two stages, Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, for 16 hours, with more than 70 acts including Queen, David Bowie, and Madonna. According to Guinness World Records, 1.9 billion people watched it across 150 countries via satellite broadcast, and the concert raised about $127 million for famine-struck Ethiopia. The Truman Show (1998) fits here: a life broadcast live to billions, the logical conclusion of the satellite mass spectacle. Peter Weir directed it, Andrew Niccol wrote it, Jim Carrey played Truman Burbank, and the film took $264 million worldwide on a $60 million budget. Today, in the era of reality shows and smartphones, it is much scarier than it was in 1998.
Sources
Main event, the 1977 New York City blackout:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977 (history of the blackout, 3,776 arrests, 1,600+ looted stores)
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/1f9ee86714ec49a48f058f5ec9105db3 (largest single-day arrest count in New York history)
https://gothamist.com/news/how-the-1977-blackout-was-bushwicks-grimmest-moment (the Buchanan South lightning strike at 8:37 PM, the destruction of Bushwick)
Main film, Cloverfield (2008):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloverfield ($25 million budget, $172 million gross)
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/jan/21/news (41 million dollar January opening weekend, a record at the time)
https://cloverfield.fandom.com/wiki/Cloverfield_(film) (the crew of Matt Reeves, J.J. Abrams, Drew Goddard)
Side events:
https://www.airships.net/blog/anniversary-roundtrip-flight-atlantic/ (R34 first round-trip Atlantic crossing)
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/13-july-1919/ (R34 landing at Pulham on July 13)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Captain_and_the_World_of_Tomorrow (Sky Captain, $70M budget, $58M gross, cult film)
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/77835-largest-simultaneous-rock-concert-tv-audience (Live Aid, 1.9 billion viewers)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Aid (Live Aid, two venues, about $127 million raised)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show (The Truman Show, $60M budget, $264M gross)