• the darkest hour

   

  The power cut that caused the New York blackout from July 13 to 14, 1977, was neither the first nor the most prolonged to have hit the city. But it was the only one localised to the New York metropolitan area alone rather than a wider swathe of the Northeastern seaboard, and unlike the good-natured “we’re all in this together” attitude that had marked an earlier blackout in 1965, this one resulted in widespread disorder and looting. As such it appeared a further step in the the city’s descent into a spiral of crime, violence and dereliction, feeding into a textbook narrative of decadence – Studio 54 had just opened that April – and decline: think Gotham City, the fall of Mammon et cetera – an image extrapolated and fictionalised in the cult movie classic Escape from New York in 1981, in which Manhattan is depicted as a lawless, high security prison island. Throughout the 1970s New York had been on the brink of bankruptcy, and in the summer of 1977, was in the grip of an intense heatwave and continuing fear over the unsolved Son of Sam serial killings which had been terrorising the city since the previous year, when suddenly the lights went out. I  (rgw)

  Looters making their escape from a store left vulnerable during the black out. (Photo: © Bettmann/CORBIS)

• COVER

  COVER

  Cover

  After Dark
• Table of contents

  Table of contents
• EDITORIAL

  EDITORIAL

  Editorial

  After Dark
• INTERVIEW

  INTERVIEW

  In the Twilight Hour

  An Interview with Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, Snøhetta

  Text: Rob Wilson
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Luna Park

  Place Without Shadows, Coney Island

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Let There Be Light

  Super-Kamiokande Neutrino Detector

  Text: Sebastian Schumacher
• ESSAY

  ESSAY

  Night Walkers

  Place-hacking nocturnal London

  Text: Bradley Garrett
• FOUND

  FOUND

  The Darkest Hour

  The 1977 New York blackout

  Text: Rob Wilson
• PHOTO ESSAY

  PHOTO ESSAY

  The Night Watch

  Photographer Joël Tettamanti

  Text: Sophie Lovell
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Circadian Rhythm

  Arnout Meijer's light sculptures

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• FOCUS

  FOCUS

  The Illuminati

  uncube’s pick of enlightened façades

  Text: Sophie Lovell, Elvia Wilk, Florian Heilmeyer
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Mirror, Mirror on the Hill

  Solspeil in Rjukan

  Text: Fiona Shipwright
• ESSAY

  ESSAY

  Night Purge

  CH2 Council Building, Melbourne

  Text: Sophie Lovell
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Techno Textures

  Vurt nightclub, South Korea

  Text: Florian Heilmeyer
• PHOTO BOOTH

  PHOTO BOOTH

  In the Photo Booth with...

  Francine Houben

  Text: Rob Wilson
• KLAUSTOON

  KLAUSTOON

  Klaustoon

  XX. Creatures of the Night

  Text: Klaus
• NEXT

  NEXT

  Next

  Animal House

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