November 9, 1965: The Night the Lights Went Out

November 9, 1965: It was "The Night the Lights Went Out." At 5:27 PM, just as the Tuesday night rush hour was getting rough, a blackout hit the Northeastern United States, hitting New York City especially hard. Over 30 million people were without power.

Given the time of year, it was already dark out. Traffic lights went out. People got stuck in elevators. People got stuck in the City's Subway system.

The Consolidated Edison Company, a.k.a. Con Ed, managed to spare Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn from the blackout when they disconnected their Arthur Kill Generation Station, on Staten Island, from the grid. Some parts of New Jersey, powered by Public Service Electric & Gas, a.k.a. PSE&G, were not affected, allowing the City's newspapers to use the printing presses of the Newark Evening News to print their next day's editions, such as they were: Even The New York Times only printed 10 pages.

The New York Police Department later said that the City had the fewest reported crimes of any night since records began to be kept, breaking the record of February 9, 1964, the night The Beatles made their 1st appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. This would end up in sharp contrast to the next major blackout, in 1977, when rioting developed, and it was the most arrests the NYPD ever made in 1 night.

Power was restored before the morning rush hour. Ever since, while there were also blackouts in New York in 1961, 1963, 1967, 1977 (as mentioned), and in 2003, people old enough to remember it mean November 9, 1965 when they asked, "Where were you when the lights went out?" (UPDATE: There was a brief blackout in 2023 as well.)

And there is no truth to the (pardon my choice of words) urban legend: There were no more babies born in New York in early August 1966, 9 months later, than there were in early August 1965 or in early August 1967.

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As I said, November 9, 1965 was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over, as the Los Angeles Dodgers had won the World Series 26 days earlier, beating the Minnesota Twins in the World Series. Both the NFL and the AFL were in midweek.

It was early in the NBA and NHL seasons. However, because of the blackout, for only the 2nd time in their history, the New York Knicks had to postpone a game. The 1st was on November 22, 1963, the night of the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

The New York Rangers were not affected by the blackout, as they were not scheduled. None of the NHL's 6 teams were. But there were 3 games played in the NBA that night -- 2 of them, surprisingly, in the Northeast:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Baltimore Bullets, 130-116, at the Rhode Island Auditorium in Providence.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 118-110 at the Philadelphia Civic Center's Convention Hall. Wilt Chamberlain scored 39 points, and Hal Greer scored 32. In a losing effort, Jerry West scored 32.

* And the San Francisco Warriors beat the Detroit Pistons, 107-102 at the Cow Palace in the San Francisco suburb of Daly City, California. Nate Thurmond scored 18 points, and grabbed 42 rebounds.