In July 1977, a lightning strike in Westchester County set off a power outage that plunged New York City into 25 hours of darkness. Flights were canceled, baseball games suspended, and subway trains ground to a halt. Looting spread through neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Bronx, along with hundreds of fires set by arsonists.
Imagine that you were walking from your office in Brooklyn to catch the subway home when the lights went out. Within moments, you hear the sound of shattering glass and see flames rising up into the sky. A taxi pulls up beside you, and the cabbie yells, “You want to get out of here?”
It’s a $30 ride home, but you consider it a bargain. As you climb in, the driver says, “For a hundred bucks I’ll take you wherever ...
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