Manhole fire plunges downtown Newark into the dark

A power outage in Newark was affecting downtown Newark including parts of the Rutgers-Newark campus and St. Michael's Hospital Thursday morning.

PSE&G spokeswoman Deann Muzikar said a cable failure in a manhole at University Avenue and Bleeker Street caused a fire at 1:30 a.m. early Thursday morning, causing an outage for 11 large customers in the downtown area. PSE&G's headquarters, NJIT and the Prudential Building were among those without power

4 customers had been restored by 12 noon including World Comm, the Macy's building, Time Equities and the PSEG headquarters according to spokeswoman Lindsey Pulti. "We need to install new cable today to bring back the remainder which includes Rutgers, NJIT and St. Michael's Hospital.

She said that St. Michael's was fully operational and running power off a generator..

In a message on its Facebook page, Rutgers said only classes in Aidekman, Boyden, Conklin, Olson and the Life Sciences Center are being canceled. The Dana Library was also closed.

"Power also is out in the Woodward and Talbott residence halls. Arrangements are being made to provide services to students in these residence halls in the interim," wrote the university." Parking deck 1 was also closed due to the outage.

NJIT canceled classes in the GTC, CAB and ME buildings, according to the NJIT Police Facebook page.