Taking a cab south through Manhattan is like changing cities. Above 30th Street, the lights of the city shine as bright as they ever have. Times Square's dazzling panoply illuminates Manhattanites in Heath-Ledger-as-the-Joker face makeup and sexy catsuits. Below 30th Street, the city is still plunged in darkness. Traffic-lights are all out; junctions are marked with eerie red flare-flames and guarded by police cars.

The power has been out down here since the 14th Street transformer spectacularly exploded in the height of Monday night's storm surge. When the lights went out, the residents of Ninth Street, between Second and Third Avenues, headed to their local bar: The Immigrant.

Aya Mantel lives across the road. “When the power went, we all just ran there,” she tells me. “The Immigrant was the first place. Right after the power was cut.” Mantel spent the night of the storm a couple of streets down, helping to rescue people trapped by the rising waters. The local bars offered blessed respite, and the local shops offered much-needed supplies and help.

At Bar 82, on Second Avenue, I meet Mantel for a drink late last night. “This place just makes me so happy,” she says. “The most amazing thing is that they here were worried about me. That's a community. The fact that they were worried about me.”

After the power went out, Mantel tells me, a queue of local residents quickly formed outside Deli Village on the corner of Ninth Street and Second Avenue, looking for supplies: torches, batteries, food and water, cigarettes. Those who didn't have cash the store let write IOUs. The atmosphere is communal, deeply caring, and trusting. Everyone knows each other, and everyone helps everyone out.

“They're the most amazing people,” says Mantel. “Everyone pulled together – free coffee, hot meals, people opening bars. It was really beautiful. … I just think it's so beautiful.”

This story is not necessarily the same all over lower Manhattan. Mantel reports seeing looting in SoHo, just a few blocks away. “Everything below Houston is nothing like here. I saw people running out of places, there was fighting, it was crazy.”

Jason Corey owns and operates The Immigrant. When I meet him, the bar is buzzing with locals. The selection of drinks is limited by the supply, and the bar is lit by candles, and the atmosphere is electrifying, exciting, conspiratorial, homely. “This reminds me of New York when I came here in the late 80s,” Corey says. “There's cool people, and there's an element of danger in the air.”

“It's been a lot of fun,” he continues. “Thrilling, in a way; just adapting and overcoming.”

Upper Manhattan, in the light, continues to party for Halloween. But, in the darkness below 30th Street, real communities and connections are being forged. Perhaps Hurricane Sandy had an up-side after all.

“We've had a lot of people making friends,” says Corey, “and a lot of coupling-up. People are meeting each other.”