While much of the city was paralyzed by the fear of looters and arsonists during the 1977 blackout, some had not a worry in the world as they partied through the pitchblack night.
Elaine’s restaurant on the Upper East Side “was very exciting, it was the place to be,” when the lights went out said owner Elaine Kaufman. “Everyone wanted to stay because this is where it was happening.”
Diners ate antipasto and popped bottles of cold champagne and white wine before they turned warm.
“At first, we thought the lights would go back on,” said Kaufman. “But they never did and it was hot, so we moved the party outside.”
Anyone walking by on Second Avenue that night would have seen Calvin Klein, Al Pacino and then-Mayor Abe Beame’s wife, Mary, lounging on the hoods of cars, bottles of champagne in hand.
“Mrs. Beame just kept saying, ‘I have to get home to my husband,’ but she was having fun,” said Kaufman. “Everyone was eating and drinking. Everyone was full of fun.”
Photographer Peter Beard soon joined the party with guests he picked up at The Plaza hotel. Writer George Plimpton hurried over, and Woody Allen stayed for hours.
“Everyone was drinking. We were here all night,” Kaufman said. Ed Koch, then a mayoral candidate, was eating a $1.75 threecourse chicken dinner at a downtown restaurant when the city went dark.
“I was with friends from the local political club,” Koch said.
He soon headed uptown so he could use his enormous campaign trailer as a bus. He picked up people on the Upper East Side and dropped them off on the corners they needed to get to.
He eventually made it to his Washington Place home in the Village and into bed.