NYC Power Outage Rocks East Side

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AP:

A power outage darkened a large swath of Manhattan and the Bronx on Wednesday, knocking out traffic lights, cutting subway service and forcing the evacuation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on one of the hottest days of the year. “The entire neighborhood is out,” said Phil Quintana, a building superintendent on 94th Street on the Upper East Side. Con Edison said the blackout affected 136,700 customers in all, or more than 500,000 people. The cause was under investigation, but spokesman Chris Olert said it was some sort of transmission disturbance. He didn’t know whether the heat was a factor. “We won’t even speculate on the cause yet,” Olert said. The city was in the second day of temperatures well over 90 degrees. The outage stretched from the east side of Manhattan to the Bronx. The office of the Bronx borough president said multiple spots were affected, including the area around Yankee Stadium. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was evacuated around 4 p.m. and visitors were forced to sit on the outside steps in the sweltering heat. The street lights up and down Fifth Avenue were dark. The power outage caused suspensions and delays along the city’s subways.

UPDATE: Gothamist has much more …

UPDATE #2: City Room reports substation explosion caused the outage …

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