This is a
slice of life from 39 years ago tomorrow. The night of July 13, 1977, the
lights went out all over most of New York City and nearby areas. It was also
the summer during which a deranged man was killing young people at random in
the city and referring to himself as Son of Sam.
I was at a
meeting of feminists in downtown New York City to discuss how we could overcome
the Hyde Amendment, passed by Congress the previous year, that prevented
Medicaid funds from being used for abortion. We thought of starting a coalition
of women’s groups to organize women, particularly poor women and women of
color, and to fight for reproductive rights; this group become CARASA, the
Coalition for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse.* We also talked
about a zap action group, doing skits to make our political points, which
evolved into No More Nice Girls.**
As the
meeting was winding down, the lights dimmed, brightened, dimmed, and went out
altogether. Our hostess found a flashlight and candles. The few of us who were
mothers took turns on the phone in the kitchen to call our kids or babysitters.
When I reached Frannie, the Barnard student babysitter with our five-year-old,
she reported that my husband, a reporter at the New York Post, had called to
say the lights were going out in northern Manhattan, and she should get the
flashlight out of the cabinet in case they went out in our apartment – which they
did as soon as she put her hand on the flashlight.
Out on the
balcony of the 11th floor apartment, we could see some leftover fireworks from
July 4 popping here and there, and a journalist said it reminded her of
Vietnam.
Eventually
we decided to adjourn to someone’s low-floor apartment elsewhere in the
Village. But first we had to navigate 10 flights of stairs in darkness.
Fortunately, many of us still smoked, so by the light of lighters and matches,
we made our way, feeling adventurous.
On the
street, however, it did not feel adventurous. Four of us who lived uptown were
walking toward Sixth Avenue when a couple of young men walked by, and one
muttered, “I’d like to fuck you into the ground.” Luckily, we were able to get
a taxi pretty quickly, but lurching uptown with no traffic lights was
unnerving. And only 10 blocks from my home, a car had been rammed into a
Woolworth’s, breaking the gates guarding the windows and the windows, and
people were looting.
I felt
lucky to be home, and my daughter did, too. She grabbed my hand after I came in
the door and said, “From now on, we are going everywhere together.”
*CARASA no longer exists, but you can find out more about
its goals
here.
