Editing Abraham Beame (section)

===Blackout of 1977===
{{Main|New York City blackout of 1977}}
On the evening of July 13, 1977, a [[New York City blackout of 1977|massive power failure]] hit the city. With temperatures in the mid-nineties Fahrenheit and the humidity high, New Yorkers sweltered. By the time power was restored at 10:39&nbsp;p.m. the next night, the city had been without power for 25 hours. Beame set up a Blackout Action Center at the New York City Police Department headquarters. The blackout resulted in raw sewage washing up on beaches and spoiled food in hundreds or thousands of restaurants around the city.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Imperato|first=Pascal|date=August 1, 2016|title=Public Health Concerns Associated with the New York City Blackout of 1977|journal=Journal of Community Health|volume=41|issue=4|pages=707–716|doi=10.1007/s10900-016-0206-6|pmid=27220853|s2cid=8004028}}</ref>

After a chaotic four years as mayor, Beame ran for a second term in 1977, and finished third in the Democratic [[Partisan primary|primary]], behind Representative [[Ed Koch]] and [[New York Secretary of State]] [[Mario Cuomo]], and ahead of former Representative [[Bella Abzug]], Representative [[Herman Badillo]] and Manhattan Borough President [[Percy Sutton]]. He was succeeded by Koch, who won the [[1977 New York City mayoral election|general election on November 8, 1977]].<ref name="baruch" />

When Beame left office on January 1, 1978, the city budget had a surplus of $200 million.<ref name=remarks /> There was a $1.5 billion deficit when Beame took office.<ref name="baruch" />

A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts by Melvin G. Holli of the [[University of Illinois at Chicago]] ranked Beame as the 14th-worst American big-city mayor to serve between 1820 and 1993.<ref>{{Cite book | last = Holli | first = Melvin G. | title = The American Mayor | publisher = PSU Press | year = 1999 | location = University Park | url = https://archive.org/details/americanmayorbes0000holl | isbn = 0-271-01876-3 }}</ref>