XXX

Well, I guess I am old, because I remember the summer of 1977. Granted, I was a kid, but I remember it: Son of Sam, Billy Martin v. Reggie Jackson, and, of course, The Blackout, which happened thirty years ago tonight.

It was hot as hell that summer. My mother would take us to the beach all day and when we'd come home, we'd jump right in the pool and get out only long enough to eat dinner. New York was in terrible shape. The city's finances were a mess and that disorder was reflected in its infrastructure and street life. It really did look like "Taxi Driver," where the streets are always wet and steaming and and the city they criss-crossed was rotting away before your very eyes. My aunts were so were so terrified of Son of Sam, that they looked the other way while their teenage daughters made out with their boyfriends on the living room couch by the light of the television. They preferred them to mess around at home rather than in parked cars anywhere in the five boroughs that summer. My cousin J. and his friends would hatch plots to catch Son of Sam that never got farther than the backyard. The Billy Martin-Reggie Jackson thing was a soap opera, but a juicy one. There were elements of race and class at work, of course. But there was also sub-dramas: boss v. subordinate, east coast v. west coast (believe it or not, Reggie was the east coast guy, at least originally), and brash youth vs. a guy who was looking down the slope of the second half of his life. My cousin M., who babysat us sometimes, would turn the sound down on the TV and listen to Phil Rizzuto do the play-by-play on the radio. Studio 54 opened that summer, too. I remember my older cousins talking about it.

And then there was the blackout. My mother was less than amused, but the siblings and I thought it all rather exciting. My dad, who commuted via train, got stuck in Manhattan. He had an office down in what's now called Tribeca, so he and the guys who worked for him cruised over to F. Illi Ponte, where they were regulars, to eat and drink by candlelight before all the food spoiled and the ice melted. It always sounded to me that aside from the heat, they rather enjoyed themselves.

We had another blackout in 2003. I lucked out -- I was at home. It wasn't anything like 1977, and that's probably a good thing considering that in 1977 chunks of the city were trashed. If you were a kid, the summer of 1977 was crazy, exciting, romantic, and full of intrigue. If you were a grownup trying to live your life in the City not so much.

If you're interested, Jonathan Mahler's book about New York in 1977 is a good read. (There's a film adaptation running on ESPN right now -- with John Turturro playing Billy Martin). And the NYT and the NY Daily News have some good stuff up, too.