{"id":1324,"date":"2006-07-21T10:01:47","date_gmt":"2006-07-21T18:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/07\/the_thing_about_electricity_is_that_its_really_really_really_important.html"},"modified":"2006-07-21T10:01:47","modified_gmt":"2006-07-21T18:01:47","slug":"the_thing_about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/07\/the_thing_about.html","title":{"rendered":"The Thing About Electricity Is That It&#8217;s Really, Really, Really Important"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Portions of Queens are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/07\/21\/nyregion\/21astoria.html?ex=1311134400&#038;en=061327b8cf31fc72&#038;ei=5090&#038;partner=rssuserland&#038;emc=rss\">heading into a fifth day without power<\/a> &#8212; ironic when the neighborhoods affected are within walking distance of several major power plants:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Some residents of the affected areas complained that the city has ignored a prolonged blackout that affected several neighborhoods in western Queens, which happens to be where most of the city&#8217;s power plants are located.<\/p>\n<p>. . .<\/p>\n<p>Nowhere was the &#8220;so close, yet so far&#8221; sentiment more pronounced as at the Yellowbird Repair Shop, directly across 20th Avenue from the Charles Poletti Power Plant in Astoria. Despite its proximity to the plant&#8217;s electric turbines, the repair shop, like thousands of homes and businesses in western Queens, remained largely without power yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All they have to do is run an extension cord out to us and we&#8217;re open for business,&#8221; said Chris Kalatzis, the shop manager, adding that his house in Astoria was also without power, ruining $200 worth of food in his refrigerator.<\/p>\n<p>. . .<\/p>\n<p>In Queens, the system began to fail on Monday, the third day of a severe heat wave, and the failures were probably worsened by thunderstorms on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>In parts of Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside and other areas, there was substantial loss of food, loss of business and loss of cool. &#8220;Even third-world countries do not have this kind of problem,&#8221; said Jimmy Istavrof, 57, who owns the J &#038; T Greek and Italian Deli on Ditmars Boulevard. &#8220;All this from a couple of 90-degree days.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He showed how his Greek desserts and other foods sat spoiling in his freezers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You see? Like soup,&#8221; he said, squeezing a soft carton of ice cream. &#8220;It&#8217;s all going to shame.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Dude, <em>throw that stuff away<\/em>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Portions of Queens are heading into a fifth day without power &#8212; ironic when the neighborhoods affected are within walking distance of several major power plants: Some residents of the affected areas complained that the city has ignored a prolonged blackout that affected several neighborhoods in western Queens, which happens to be where most of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,27,3,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture_infrastructure","category-just_horrible","category-queens","category-tragicomic_ironic_obnoxious_or_absurd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}