NEW YORK, AUGUST 15: I became aware that something was wrong around four in the afternoon, as I was driving off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. At the Flatbush Avenue intersection, the crossing guards seemed to be taking inordinately long to let my lane through, and I and all the other drivers swore at them as New Yorkers do, casually and without real malice. Then I noticed that the signal was dark. Happens often enough; I thought nothing of it, till I saw that the next light was also dark, and the one after that. At the same time, the radio brought the news into my car: most of the Northeast had lost power. I drove home, parked, and took a nap, figuring it would be over by the time I woke up. An hour and a half later, I woke up sweating. This would be a big one.

The last massive blackout that New York experienced was in 1977. The looters were out in full force then. This time, the city had changed, in lovely ways. Volunteers were out directing traffic at every intersection. This was the moment the self-appointed traffic wardens had been waiting for, this was their time in the sun for the grocery clerks and accountants, even if the drivers laughed at them and zoomed past. Other New Yorkers shared their phones and flashlights, let complete strangers use their toilets, helped the elderly down dark stairwells. The subway was evacuated and at dusk the sidewalks were one unending mass of people, walking steadily home. Over the Brooklyn Bridge they walked, just as they did on September 11. Except this time, the traffic was two-way; people were trying to get into Manhattan as well as out of it. They walked with bowed heads, repeatedly attempting to dial their loved ones on their cellphones. Except this time, there was no panic about it. When at last they got to their homes, they found out it was too stuffy, and walked out again.

As it got dark, the texture of the city changed. The street lights were out, and people strolled about with flashlights, lanterns. Street vendors were selling glow-sticks and phosphorescent necklaces which would save you from being run over at intersections.

There was a bright white moon high above the city competing with the red glory of Mars, the warrior planet, which hasn’t been so close to Earth in sixty-thousand years. Cars were parked on every block with the doors and windows open, so that everybody could hear the radio news coming from within. The politicians promised that investigations would be made, this would never happen again, the power grid was antiquated, et cetera, et cetera.

A group of delighted kids walked down my block sucking on ice-cream candies, which were being given away for free by the supermarket down the road.

Everyone was walking around with slices of pizza. In the blacked-out city, the pizzerias were still operational, because their ovens were gas-fired and they didn’t depend on microwaves like the more expensive restaurants.

The ancient Brooklyn tradition of stoop-sitting, where all your neighbors come out and sit on the stairs of your brownstone and yak about anything and everything, enjoyed a sudden revival.

For one glorious night, New Yorkers lost access to their TVs, to the Internet, to their cellphones, and had to turn to each other, to the warm living humanness of each other.

All the work that had seemed so crucial just that afternoon was shown up to be what it was: just work, the thing that got you money to do what you really wanted, which was to have a beer on the sidewalk and chat with your neighbours.

People realised that time was elastic, and thought again about the trajectory and velocity of their lives, and promised their children that it would all be different from now on; they’d come home earlier and eat dinner by candlelight every night. For one night, the city shed its load.

The bars were full, as they were on 9/11. They were still dispensing ice for our whiskies at midnight — this is an ice-loving nation, and the masses of permafrost in the restaurant freezers generated a cold all of their own.

We took our drinks out on the sidewalk and lit up cigarettes; we would make our own laws tonight. The entire city was moonlit and candlelit; everybody’s face was illuminated in flickering, flattering light and everybody looked beautiful and desirable.

It was a steamy night; men walked around without their shirts; women came out in their shortest skirts. People trying to catch the trains to the suburbs realised they couldn’t make it, met other commuters, and made impromptu dinner plans with them; ate pizza by candlelight and slept together in the parks. A record number of babies are going to be born on May 14, 2004.

On August 14, 2003, for the second time in three years, New York became part of the rest of the world; became Delhi or Jakarta, so regularly rocked by bombs and darkened by power cuts. But it coped, magnificently.

The emergency crews went about their tasks diligently, did their dharma so the rest of us could relax, sit on our front stoops and get to know our fellow citizens.