New Yorkers measure their lives by blackouts. I experienced my fourth* on Saturday July 13th, anchoring live coverage of the West Side Blackout on WCBS Newsradio 880. The evening brought me back to the 1965 blackout when I was 7 growing up in Manhattan, the 1977 blackout as a college student at Columbia during the Summer of Sam and the 2003 blackout covering at CNBC from Fort Lee, NJ. 

My live interview on the air with N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo the next evening was picked up by the New York Post with the memorable headline “Gov hints at Gone Edison.” Cuomo told me “Con Ed does not have a franchise granted by God” and “can be replaced,” adding Con Ed should not be allowed a self-evaluation of its performance in the blackout. Click below to listen.

https://nypost.com/2019/07/14/cuomo-sends-warning-to-con-ed-after-blackout-they-can-be-replaced/

Note: This year’s blackout happened on the 42nd anniversary of the July 13, 1977 blackout. 

*Arguably, this was my 5th blackout if you count the massive outage in lower Manhattan after Superstorm Sandy in 2012, which I also covered live on the air on WCBS.