NEW YORK _ An extensive blackout struck Manhattan on Saturday night as power was lost in Midtown, Hells Kitchen and the Upper West Side.
Street lights were reported knocked out on Columbus Ave. on the Upper West Side, and a power outage was also reported in Rockefeller Center around 7 p.m.
Con Edison's outage map reported at 7:35 p.m. that power was lost to more than 26,000 customers on the Upper West Side, Hells Kitchen and Midtown.
FDNY dispatchers received numerous calls about stuck elevators and lights out in Midtown.
Subway service was stalled in Manhattan and Queens on all the lines designated by letters, which the MTA calls its "B Division."
"We're trying to get people out of subways. We're trying to get people out of elevators. It's a big mess," said an MTA source.
Subway riders were walked through tunnels and led to the station at Columbus Circle, an MTA source said.
Giant electronic billboards in Times Square went dark.
An early unconfirmed report said there was a transformer fire at 12th Ave. around W. 54th St.
"I was sitting at my computer, and all of a sudden, it went down," said Eddie Borges, a former New York Daily News reporter who lives in a 44-story building on W. 55th St.
The hallway of his building was dark _ but neighbors soon emerged from their apartments and swapped stories.
"Perfect timing _ I just opened a bottle of wine," one of Borges' neighbors announced.
"No one is worried. We know the building will take care of it," Borges said.
The outage came 42 years to the day after the giant 1977 blackout, in which power was lost to most of the city.
