Darkness was broken only by candles, flashlights, and scattered hallway emergency lighting powered by emergency generators. But the scene described in this photograph did not occur a few months ago during the July blackout in Washington Heights. This picture was taken on Nov. 9, 1965. During the infamous outage that darkened all of New York State and parts of New England and Canada, Columbia-Presbyterian hardly missed a beat. According to a report in The Stethoscope, Presbyterian Hospital’s newsletter, diesel generators switched on followed by generators powered by steam eight seconds after the power failure. The machinery did its part and the staff chipped in as well until power returned at dawn. Pictured is the first floor of the Vanderbilt Clinic. New York’s Fire Department brought in extra lighting and the waiting area was set up with cots, creating a full triage in case the blackout turned catastrophic. Despite the transportation problems, the clinic reported that all night shifts arrived on time and some doctors and nurses returned after their day shifts to lend a hand. One operating room nurse was said to have walked 22 blocks, carrying a candle, to make her midnight shift. Working at a photo lab on East 44th Street was Elizabeth Wilcox, the woman who photographed roughly 30 years of Columbia-Presbyterian’s history. The following are remarks she penned in a log explaining this and many other pictures she took that night: “I called home to say that I would be going directly to the hospital with my camera and learned that my husband [a physician] was on his way there to help in what was bound to be a traumatic night at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.” |R