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Parts of midtown Manhattan in New York City were hit with a power outage on Saturday evening, dimming Times Square billboards, leaving people trapped in elevators and causing Jennifer Lopez’s Madison Square Garden concert to be cancelled.
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Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter that the outage was caused by a manhole fire.
Consolidated Edison Inc, New York City’s power provider, also took to Twitter to say it was working to restore power to 42,000 customers.
We are working to restore power to 42,000 customers primarily in the Westside of Manhattan. We will provide updates as we receive them. Thank you.
— Con Edison (@ConEdison) July 14, 2019
Aleksandra Michalska/Reuters
Photos circulated on social media showing the iconic sign of Radio Music Hall unlit, movie-goers evacuating from Lincoln Center’s cinema and the sprawling Columbus Circle subway station without lights. Traffic lights were not working along a stretch of Manhattan that extends up about a mile, and across from Fifth Avenue to the Hudson River, on Manhattan’s far west side.
The singer Jennifer Lopez said on Twitter she would reschedule after her show at Madison Square Garden was cut short. Concert attendees posted the moment when the stadium went dark.
A spokesman for the city fire department said they were responding to multiple calls about stuck elevators and power outages, going from midtown, near Times Square, and extending up to the Upper West Side, the area close to Lincoln Center performing arts complex. It added in a Twitter post that it was responding to “numerous stuck elevators.”
#FDNY is on scene of a transformer fire at W 64 St and West End Ave. Members are responding to reports of numerous stuck elevators that are occupied, but there are currently no patients reported.
— FDNY (@FDNY) July 14, 2019
The Twitter account for New York subways said the agency is working to keep trains moving and will bypass affected stations.
Update: We are working with Con Edison to determine the root cause of the ongoing power failure, which is affecting Midtown and the Upper West Side.
Several stations are currently without power and are being bypassed by all trains. Please stay tuned here for updates. pic.twitter.com/UoHv6RKVyl
— NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) July 13, 2019
The mayor, who is Iowa to campaign for president, said he was monitoring the situation and had not decided if he would rush back to the city.
“Well, first I have to get the details on what is happening,” de Blasio told reporters. “I’ve been through now, five and a half years of mayors, the nation’s largest city, I’ve been through many, many situations. The first thing you learn is, let’s get all the facts, and then we’ll assess what to do.”
ABC News’ Armando Garcia contributed to this report.
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