NEW YORK (AP) -- Much of New York was plunged into darkness
Monday by a superstorm that overflowed the city's historic waterfront, flooded
the financial district and subway tunnels and cut power to hundreds of thousands
of people.

The city had shut its mass transit system, schools, the
stock exchange and Broadway and ordered hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to
leave home to get out of the way of the superstorm Sandy as it zeroed in on the
nation's largest city.

Residents spent much of the day trying to salvage normal
routines, jogging and snapping pictures of the water while officials warned the
worst of the storm had not hit.

By evening, a record 13-foot storm surge was threatening
Manhattan's southern tip, howling winds had left a crane hanging from a
high-rise and utilities deliberately darkened part of downtown Manhattan to
avoid storm damage.

"It's really a complete ghost town now," said Stephen
Weisbrot, from a powerless 10th-floor apartment in lower Manhattan.

Water lapped over the seawall in Battery Park City, flooding
rail yards, subway tracks, tunnels and roads. Rescue workers floated bright
orange rafts down flooded downtown streets, while police officers rolled slowly
down the street with loudspeakers telling people to go home.