Muncie Evening Press from Muncie, Indiana • Page 8

PAGE 8 MUNCIE EVENING PRESS, FRIDAY, JULY 15, 1977 They joke, curse, 'cope it' through frightful night By CATHY BOOTH NEW YORK (UPI) They joked in bars and cursed the power company. They stood fiercely in doorways, waiting with clubs for the looters. They danced in the dark and brushed their teeth with orange juice. They were New Yorkers. Coping is their birthright.

From Yonkers to Coney Island during the frightful night of the blackout of '77, the only glitter left on the Big Apple came from car headlights and match sticks. It was a catastrophe tailor-made for the city's. special brand of gallows humor. "It's so dark, I can't even see the hookers," said one West Side resident. A barrage of one-liners, of course, was directed at Consolidated Edison, the power utility which went kaput and delivered the city to the darkness and the heat.

In the Bronx, District Attorney Mario Merola postponed for a week a news conference at which he planned to announce the arrests of 13 businessmen who allegedly had tampered with Con Ed meters. "They ought to give 'em medals," said one New Yorker. And there were the sounds of police sirens and smashing glass and gunfire piercing the darkness as looters stalked the neighborhoods of the poor. "It was the night of the animals," said one patrolman. By midnight Thursday, more than 3,400 persons had been arrested and city officials reopened a shuttered ramshackle jail known as "The Tombs" to house them.

Shop owners stood fiercely on the littered sidewalks in front of their stores in the 90-degree heat and the dark, ready to fight off the vandals. Some had guns. Others stood guard with baseball bats and homemade spears. "What else can they do?" said a police spokesman. Smart Shoppers are Coming to Var Tassel FURNITURE HIS SHARE OF BOOTY section of Brooklyn Thursday This young looter proudly dis- after the massive power failure plays the pajamas he has taken in New York.

-UPI. from a store in the Bushwick Lights go on at last, end 'night of animals' By DAVID L. 'LANGFORD NEW YORK (UPI) In the glare of light, New York's "night of the animals" seemed just a fleeting nightmare. If the President, the mayor and the governor were demanding investigations into a blackout which virtually closed America's largest city for about 24 hours, most New Yorkers were just happy to see their TV sets flicker to life, feel the cool of their air conditioners and listen to the "rumble of the subway train. At one 'sweltering bar they broke into song like Londoners during the blitz as the Con Ed juice surged back into the power lines late Thursday.

"When the lights go on again, all over the world It had been a nasty ordeal for many. More than 10,000 policemen four times the normal night force -patrolled the streets Thursday night to head off a recurrence of the looting, sniper fire and arson which had shaken Harlem, the South Bronx, Brooklyn's BedfordStuyvesant district and other neighborhoods the night before on a scale not seen since the riots of the mid-1960s. As police reported isolated instances of looting in the Bronx and Brooklyn, Consolidated Edison at 10:39 p.m. reported electric service had been restored to virtually all the 9 million residents of the city and its northern suburbs. In the South Bronx about 100 persons picketed a police stationhouse to protest.

the arrest of their neighbors for looting. Gov. Hugh Carey sent in 250 state troopers to help direct traffic and take some pressure off beleaguered city police. Politicians were spitting mad, demanding explanations of why the power company allowed an extended replay of the 11-hour blackout of 1965. Mayor Abraham Beame accused Con of gross negligence." "Sometimes I think we ought to condemn them to snapped the mayor at one point in a troubled day.

Con Ed said it was just one of those things. Three bolts of lightning shot out of a thunderstorm 50 miles north of the city, LOOK AT LOKERS! LOKER'S OUR 15th AND LARGEST TENT SALE Whirlpool DISHWASHER Deluxe 2-Cycle 2 Spray Arms Energy Saving Dry Button $247 NOW CLOSING OUT All 1977 RCA COLOR TVs RCA PORTABLE Black and White Solid State $73 Whirlpool Chest Freezer Holds 315 lbs. $223 LITTON Microwave Cooking Every MICROWAVE OVEN RANGE REDUCED Now From Only $227 CLEVELAND TENNESSEE GAS RANGES 0 00 Only From $199 SHOP 6 Days Sunday 12-6 Whirlpool BONUS ICE MAKER 59.95 Value $1288 17 Cu. Ft. No-Frost REFRI REFRIGERATOR-FREEZER Adjustable Shelves Power Saver Control Twin Crispers Hold Bushel Durable Porcelain Enameled Interior Separate, Temperature Controls for Re- W.T.

$399 frigerator and Freezer ONLY $14.44 MONTHLY playing havoc with key lines, transformers and generators. "It was an act of God," said Joyce ke a spokeswoman for the power company. Charles Luce, chairman of the board of Con Ed, was more specific. 'A fail- safe mechanism, installed after the 1965 blackout, which is designed to reduce 50 per cent of the system's load during power crises, was inadequate," he said. The Federal Power Commission, under orders from President Carter, began an investigation and said it would have an initial report within two weeks.

"Since the Northeast blackout of 9. said FPC Chairman Richard Dunham, "many steps have been taken by the electric industry to avoid the serious recurrence of that very unfortunate episode. Recent events indicate those preventative measures have been insufficient in Con Ed's service area." Whoever was at fault, the darkness provided cover for the night stalkers, the looters men, women and children. Gunshots rang out, plate glass shattered, sirens screamed. With police forces spread thin, the looting continued into the daylight hours.

"It was the night of the animals," said one patrolman. At the Ace Pontiac Co. in the South Bronx, 50 new automobiles were driven away by thieves, right through the showroom door. "There is not a single television set left in Harlem," said Police Officer John Ryan. Guns, liquor, furniture, and clothing, including one store's entire stock of tuxedos, were carted away.

No one was able to put an exact value on the losses, but unofficial estimates put it in the billions. Many of the small businesses in the city's high crime areas had been unable to obtain insurance. And as Officer Ryan put it, hundreds of shops "have been wiped out as if a bomb was dropped." Even at high noon Thursday about 70 persons were seen sacking a supermarket in the South Bronx. "They just came out and burned the place down," said a middleaged woman watching from across the street. "They're taking what they can get." Mayor Beame called it the "night of terror" and urged that "these hoodlums be punished to the fullest extent of the law." 413 S.

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