There was allegedly no one at the con Ed power station to pump start a generator but because of lack of responsibility in behalf of the con Ed employee it didn't start. Con Edison electric company had released a state to the New York Times stating that "the connection towards areas in upstate new York tripped due to overloads which caused a domino effects of outages and overloads across long island and the tri-state areas. (New York Times). This became such a cluster mess that it was reported by the New York Times in 1978, that Con Ed could not successfully support the city that never sleeps power efficiently and by night fall the entire Con Edison Electric System shut down completely on July 13th, at 10:25pm (Blackout Legacy). .
The Effect of this massive city wide Blackout of 1977 lead to a chaotic unrecognizable city, there was so much looting and Vandalism in about 35 neighborhoods which mostly included the poorest town in the city. Place that were hit really hit with vandalism and looting was a town called Crown Heights, Many facts that were made about the Crown Heights situation. It was reported by the New York Times that 75 to 80 stores for 8 blocks were looted and communities in Bush wick, Brooklyn there was excessive amounts of arson and more than 25 homes still burning down by the time the sun came up. (The Great Blackout: Rippling Down the Grid"). Even though the blackout of 1977 started on a very hot and stifling day, and many residency entered the streets not only to escape the heat and fun outside but to also steal and cause trouble. The most expensive stores that were being hit were of course jewelry, furniture and electronic stores (Mahler 192). About 134 stores were broken into and cleaned out; about 50 were just burnt down. (Mahler 200, 204 & 205). A lot of the times men and women looted for fun and some did it because they needed something and felt it was the right time to get it.