I was in.midtown Manhattan on the 40th anniversary of that black out when on that day a underground ConEd cable blew midtown was dark for 8+ hours in the heat of July. I was on the 25th floor in a suite overlooking the park fortunately I had a balcony to get some breeze. The water system stopped working after the pumps failed so for the full time in the heat there was no running water. 25 flights of stairs are a good workout even going down.legs were Jello by the ground floor. Then the subway was down and all the traffic signals too it was gridlock. Uber surge priced to hundreds of bucks to get to Soho or Harlem which still had power. We just walked the 2.5 miles in the heat to Soho later that night when the power came back the subway was still down it takes hours to reset the DC grid apparently. I realised that NYC is a death trap without electricity. No water no transportation,people.trapped in the lifts in 100 degree heat without water. Surprisingly no one died trapped for hours in lifts with no hydration we could hear people yelling in the shafts from the top floor NYFD had to repel down to them and do a rescue. I never get on a high rise lift now without at least a liter of water. That week was also Manhattanhinge where the sun lines up across town streets and sets directly inline with the buildings it’s a twice per year astronomical phenomenon impressive to see live.