I was going to post the link, but Lambert at Eschaton beat me to it.

If it weren't for an underlying sense of fear and for the economic cost -I'm thinking in terms of goods lost to heat more than lost opportunities for 'wealth creation'- I'd call the blackout a success. I walked from 22nd Street on the west side and over the Williamsburg Bridge at sunset. In Brooklyn as we got off the bridge the Hasidim were handing out plastic cups of water, but by the time I realized what the young girl had shoved in front of me -we both moved to quickly- I was past. I turned around to see the man I was walking with take the cup and thank her. If I hadn't looked I wouldn't have known what happened.
Everybody was in the street. The only people who missed out were the those trying to get somewhere. I ended up in a bar drinking tequila by candlelight and flirting with a tall Polish bartender with a sexy gap toothed grin. It was the perfect snow day, and all the snow vanished before it turned to slush. Things might have changed if it had lasted for a second night.

-I walked over the bridge with Gareth James of the the Whitney ISP and we agreed that 5 minutes of darkness once a year would be a more appropriate and more powerful commemoration of September 11th than the Nuremberg inspired twin towers of light: an acknowledgment of weakness rather than a celebration of false strength. And as all the news photographs show, the city in darkness was beautiful.