“Where do they hide all of the electrical poles in Manhattan, and every other downtown city area? “
Those are medium voltage lines. The substations are outside of the cities, for obvious reasons.
Really? I find it hard to believe that all of Manhattan is run off of medium voltage lines. If true they would have to run a lot of them into the city.
That said, the high voltage lines on the giant towers aren’t generally where the power outages occur, as the trees are below those lines and can’t fall on them.