Showing posts with label 1977. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1977. Show all posts
Friday, December 30, 2016
Wednesday, October 07, 2015
Manhattan, lights off, July 12, 1977 (we were there)
By Jack Brummet, NYC Metro Ed.
The 24-hour blackout of NYC (from History in pictures twitter feed) 7/13/77. KeeKee, Jan, and I were there. It was the Summer of Sam and I was in Long Island College hospital in Brooklyn with a pneumothorax and double pneumonia. The only good part was that I had a view of lower Manhattan and watched as the lights blinked off around town.
---o0o---
Sunday, March 01, 2015
The month they tried to kill me in Brooklyn
By Jack Brummet, NYC Metro Ed.
That night, the lights went out. From my window in the hospital I could see the World Trade Center. It was dark. The New York blackout of 1977 was on. Looting and fires broke out all over the city. Over 4,000 people were arrested. They re-opened The Tombs in downtown Manhattan, to warehouse all the arrestees.
At Long Island College Hospital, the backup generators fired up immediately. Alas, the air conditioning did not. It was around 104 degrees that day. It was at least 100 in the hospital by ten o'clock. The kitchen was closed, and they served us sandwiches and juice and fruit. It was the best food I would eat for three weeks.
It's not difficult to install a chest tube. I later learned how to do it advanced first aid. Yet, somehow, the hapless resident--Dr. Bucobo--f***ed it up. Normally, it takes a day or two for a collapsed lung to heal. It had been a week. Someone finally realized that the tube was in The Wrong Place. They chopped another hole in my chest and re-installed the tube. The resident and his intern came in once a day. If I survived these F-troop MDs, it would be a miracle.
Two days later, my new friend Jan Newberry, came to see me. I couldn't speak. I was in incredible pain. My fever was 104 and climbing. My breathing was shallow because it hurt to breathe. My blood gas was not promising. Jan called Keelin, who raced down and somehow convinced them they were killing me.
Things looked marginal for my continued existence. The pneumothorax was now complicated by double pneumonia. They hooked up a lung suctioning machine, put me on large doses of morphine, and pumped me full of vitamins, major antibiotics, stool softeners, sleeping pills every night, and other potions and elixirs. The morphine helped. When I was finally on antibiotics, the fever broke. After two grim days, I slowly began to recover. I was going to live. The only thing I cared about was the next dose of morphine.
After twenty days in LICH, the chest tube was removed. It felt great not to have to lug that box around (the chest tube ran into a box with water in it, which kept the lung pressurized as it repaired itself). The next day, they kicked me out. I was back on the streets of New York.
They caught Son of Sam the next month. He was our neighbor for a long time after that--we lived across the street from the Brooklyn House of Detention.
It wasn't they, so much as circumstance, my inexperience, the public hospital system, MedicAid, the New York Blackout and my poverty all colluding to nearly snuff me.
Son of Sam was on the loose in Brooklyn and Queens. The temperatures were in the upper 90s. I was on the job trail. On July 13, when I got back to our loft in Brooklyn, my back was killing me. I sat down and noticed it wasn't my back at all; it was my chest. My arm and back felt numb and I could barely breathe.
Was I having a heart attack? I called Keelin at the deli where she worked. "What should I do?" "Call 911!"
Son of Sam was on the loose in Brooklyn and Queens. The temperatures were in the upper 90s. I was on the job trail. On July 13, when I got back to our loft in Brooklyn, my back was killing me. I sat down and noticed it wasn't my back at all; it was my chest. My arm and back felt numb and I could barely breathe.
Was I having a heart attack? I called Keelin at the deli where she worked. "What should I do?" "Call 911!"
I called 911. I said I was having a heart attack. An hour later, no ambulance had arrived. I called again. Fifteen minutes later, a beat cop rang our buzzer. I let him in. I wasn't having a coronary, but something was really wrong. The friendly cop was able to raise an ambulance.
The ambulance brought me to the E.R. at Long Island College Hospital. It took the attending physician about five seconds to diagnose a spontaneous pneumothorax, or, a collapsed lung. People have collapsed lungs every day--usually athletes or people who've been jostled in an accident, or have been stabbed or shot.
A resident put a chest tube in, after giving me Novacaine to numb the scalpel's bite.
That night, the lights went out. From my window in the hospital I could see the World Trade Center. It was dark. The New York blackout of 1977 was on. Looting and fires broke out all over the city. Over 4,000 people were arrested. They re-opened The Tombs in downtown Manhattan, to warehouse all the arrestees.
At Long Island College Hospital, the backup generators fired up immediately. Alas, the air conditioning did not. It was around 104 degrees that day. It was at least 100 in the hospital by ten o'clock. The kitchen was closed, and they served us sandwiches and juice and fruit. It was the best food I would eat for three weeks.
It's not difficult to install a chest tube. I later learned how to do it advanced first aid. Yet, somehow, the hapless resident--Dr. Bucobo--f***ed it up. Normally, it takes a day or two for a collapsed lung to heal. It had been a week. Someone finally realized that the tube was in The Wrong Place. They chopped another hole in my chest and re-installed the tube. The resident and his intern came in once a day. If I survived these F-troop MDs, it would be a miracle.
Two days later, my new friend Jan Newberry, came to see me. I couldn't speak. I was in incredible pain. My fever was 104 and climbing. My breathing was shallow because it hurt to breathe. My blood gas was not promising. Jan called Keelin, who raced down and somehow convinced them they were killing me.
Things looked marginal for my continued existence. The pneumothorax was now complicated by double pneumonia. They hooked up a lung suctioning machine, put me on large doses of morphine, and pumped me full of vitamins, major antibiotics, stool softeners, sleeping pills every night, and other potions and elixirs. The morphine helped. When I was finally on antibiotics, the fever broke. After two grim days, I slowly began to recover. I was going to live. The only thing I cared about was the next dose of morphine.
After twenty days in LICH, the chest tube was removed. It felt great not to have to lug that box around (the chest tube ran into a box with water in it, which kept the lung pressurized as it repaired itself). The next day, they kicked me out. I was back on the streets of New York.
They caught Son of Sam the next month. He was our neighbor for a long time after that--we lived across the street from the Brooklyn House of Detention.
---o0o---
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Living in Brooklyn, 1977 (The Summer of Sam), when the doctors nearly succeeded in killing me
By Jack Brummet, NYC Metro Ed.
I moved to Brooklyn in June 1977, (The Summer of Sam), and after a couple of months living in a loft near The Bowery on the Lower East Side, we moved for two years to 324 Atlantic Ave. (between Smith and , right across the street from the Brooklyn House of Detention. On July 5th, I experienced a spontaneous pneumothorax that developed into double pneumonia with a fever of 106 one day (the very day the A/C was shut down due to the blackout).
It was seriously touch and go for a few days as to whether I'd make it or not. On July 13th, from my window in Long Island College Hospital, I watched as the lights on the World Trade Center dimmed and went out. And the great blackout and riots of 1977 began. I got out of the hospital three weeks later, in early August.
On August 10th, after a year of terror, they finally captured Son of Sam, and brought him, yeah, right across the street from our crib, to the House of Detention. It was a heady first couple of months in Brooklyn and NYC, to say the least. They've cleaned the place up a tad since we lived there. Back then, people would look kind of befuddled when you said you lived in Brooklyn. And getting a taxi home from Manhattan was virtually impossible unless you paid a double fare. It was a rude and harrowing introduction, but I loved every minute of it and Brooklyn and Manhattan have been part of my DNA ever since.
KeeKee Brummet and Jan Newberry probably saved my life that summer, and for that I'll be ever grateful to my pal and my gal.
My pal and my gal, Brooklyn, 1978
A shot I took from of our fire escape during a Brooklyn parade. The tall building is the House of Detention.
I shot I took from of our fire escape during a Brooklyn parade. The tall building is the House of Detention.
I moved to Brooklyn in June 1977, (The Summer of Sam), and after a couple of months living in a loft near The Bowery on the Lower East Side, we moved for two years to 324 Atlantic Ave. (between Smith and , right across the street from the Brooklyn House of Detention. On July 5th, I experienced a spontaneous pneumothorax that developed into double pneumonia with a fever of 106 one day (the very day the A/C was shut down due to the blackout).
It was seriously touch and go for a few days as to whether I'd make it or not. On July 13th, from my window in Long Island College Hospital, I watched as the lights on the World Trade Center dimmed and went out. And the great blackout and riots of 1977 began. I got out of the hospital three weeks later, in early August.
KeeKee Brummet and Jan Newberry probably saved my life that summer, and for that I'll be ever grateful to my pal and my gal.
---o0o---
Monday, October 12, 2009
A letter from Son of Sam during the Summer of Sam
When I moved to NYC, it was, as Spike Lee called it, "The Summer of Sam." David Berkowitz was nabbed in a few months, and deposited in the Brooklyn House of Detention, right across the street from our apartment. This is one of the letters he wrote to the press as his killing spree continued. . .
click Sam's letter to enlarge
---o0o---
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Barbra Streisand back in the day, 1977 that is
click Babs to enlarge
Here is the back cover of Barbra's 1977 album Superman. I worked at a music store in NYC that year (Carl Fischer Music Publisher) and the sheet music, with Barbra in her revealing outfit, flew off the shelves.
The cover, was probably the raciest thing she ever did. . .until perhaps Meet The Fokkers, where she plays the nearly deranged sex-therapist mom of Ben Stiller (Fokker)...
---o0o---
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