1977 Blackout Coverage from the Top of Holder Tower
By Rob Forman ’78
Just past 9:00 on the evening of July 13th, 1977 (or maybe it was 10:00), the phone rang as [Edgar Winter’s] “Frankenstein” blared from the Control A speakers. It was a listener asking whether I knew about a blackout that supposedly hit New York.
I checked the UPI machine, and returned to tell the caller that the wire had nothing about a blackout. Of course I soon figured out WHY the machine said nothing. At :15 past the hour, the ABC network scrambled onto the air from Washington. Its New York operation, and who knew how much else, were in the dark. The fun at WPRB was underway. So was what may have been the greatest audience coverage in the station’s history. Without power, New York stations that neighbored us on the FM dial were off the air. Station members David Kurman in Mineola, Long Island, and Chris Fine near the Connecticut border in Harrison, New York, called to say I was booming in. I put Chris on the air with a report on his blacked-out but very peaceful neighborhood. John Shyer reported from the top of Holder Tower, “to the southwest, there is a glow in the sky. It is Philadelphia. But in the direction of New York, the sky is black…”
LISTEN: John Shyer reports on the NYC blackout from the top of Holder Tower. (Includes off-air technical strategizing between Rob and John.)