One of the most inspiring examples of neighbors helping neighbors around the New York City area in the wake of Hurricane Sandy is the emergence of ad hoc “charging stations” for people without power who need to charge their cell phones.
From his blog, AmericanScience, a Professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology reported in Hoboken, NJ, on the neighborly phenomenon of sharing electricity which he calls, a social innovation:
We don’t have riots here. It’s just the opposite. If anything, you see real solidarity. Strangers are helping strangers. My colleagues and I check in on each other. The community…has rallied.
The neatest thing I’ve run across: We were walking down 11th Street, and we saw that people with electricity had run extension cords out of their front windows to power strips on the sidewalk.
People who don’t have power are coming to these places to charge up their electronics and cellphones.
I walked down 11th St around noon. There were around 20 charging stations within the span of four blocks.
I’ve seen more since, up and down Hudson Street, at Clinton and 11th. There must be nearly fifty of them.