Huge power outage plunges Manhattan into darkness

New York authorities say a widespread power shortage has elevators stuck, subway cars stalled and businesses without power in Manhattan.

A police officer directs traffic in Times Square during a widespread power outage, Saturday, July 13, 2019, in the Manhattan borough of New York. Source: AAP

A widespread power shortage in Manhattan has left businesses without electricity, elevators stuck and subway cars stalled.

Authorities say a transformer fire caused a power outage in Manhattan and left businesses without electricity, elevators stuck and subway cars stalled.

The New York Fire Department said the fire affected at least 38,000 customers as of 8pm Saturday.

Power reportedly went out early Saturday evening at much of Rockefeller Center and reached the Upper West Side.

A diner on Broadway at West 69th Street lost its lights, as did other surrounding businesses.

The AMC Lincoln Square 13 movie theatre on the Upper West Side, the entire Cineplex was evacuated.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority tweeted that there were outages at various underground stations. The MTA is working with energy provider Con Edison to determine the cause.

Con Edison did not immediately respond to phone messages, and it was not clear how far the outages reached.

The outage comes on the anniversary of the 1977 New York City outage that left most of the city without power.