If you were out and about in Midtown or the Upper West Side on Saturday night when the five-hour blackout hit, you got an up-close view of its effects—the darkened storefronts, non-working traffic lights, and other unusual sights.
But what did the blackout look like from afar? Joseph DiGiovanna, a filmmaker who runs the Instagram account @nyc_timescape, regularly posts timelapse videos of the New York City skyline that he captures from New Jersey—and he was filming as the blackout happened. The resulting video (h/t Untapped Cities) is an especially cool way to see how the power outage transformed the city over the course of a few hours.
“It was still very light outside when the blackout started,” DiGiovanna wrote in the caption that accompanied his video, “so here is my TimeLapse from sunset until all the buildings had power restored.”
The demarcation between the sections of the city with power—to the south and east—is quite clear, and it’s eerie to see the suddenly darkened city come back to life. DiGiovanna also posted a shorter video of just the lights coming back on, which you can watch below.
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