NY power outage knocks out subways, businesses, elevators

Fire trucks respond during a widespread power outage in the Manhattan borough of New York, Saturday, July 13, 2019, Authorities say a transformer fire caused a power outage in Manhattan and left businesses without electricity, elevators stuck and subway cars stalled. (AP Photo/Michael Owens)

NEW YORK – Authorities say a transformer fire caused a power outage in Manhattan and left businesses without electricity, elevators stuck and subway cars stalled.

The New York Fire Department said the fire started at West 64th Street and West End Avenue and affected at least 38,000 customers as of 8 p.m. Saturday.

Power reportedly went out early Saturday evening at much of Rockefeller Center and reached the Upper West Side.

A diner on Broadway at West 69th Street lost its lights, as did other surrounding businesses.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority tweeted that there were outages at various underground stations. The MTA is working with Con Edison to determine the cause.

Con Edison did not immediately respond to phone messages, and it was not clear how far the outages reached.

The outage comes on the anniversary of the 1977 New York City outage that left most of the city without power. /gsg