He must be flashing back to the 1977 blackout, where there was quite a bit of looting, But only in certain NY neighborhoods.
Looting and vandalism were widespread, especially in the African American and Puerto Rican communities, hitting 31 neighborhoods, including every poor neighborhood in the city.
Possibly the hardest hit were Crown Heights, where 75 stores on a five-block stretch were looted, and Bushwick where arson was rampant with some 25 fires still burning the next morning.
At one point two blocks of Broadway, which separates Bushwick from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, were on fire.
Thirty-five blocks of Broadway were destroyed: 134 stores looted, 45 of them set ablaze. Thieves stole 50 new Pontiacs from a Bronx car dealership.
In Brooklyn, youths were seen backing up cars to targeted stores, tying ropes around the stores' grates, and using their cars to pull the grates away before looting the store.
While 550 police officers were injured in the mayhem, 4,500 looters were arrested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977