Most of those pictures of the midtown Manhattan skyline in the blackout were taken from the same spot -- in Hamilton Park, across the Hudson River in Weeehawken, New Jersey. Little wonder -- up on a lofty bluff, it's the best view of midtown you're ever going to get.

I remember this locale with particular fondness. Not because it's the site of the duel in which Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton, although indeed it is the place. Rather, I think back to the many nights when I'd cruise to my girlfriend's house in Jersey City in my VW Beetle, pick her up, and we'd take a ride up that way to look at the lights of the city.

We would then proceed to make out like crazy up there.

So many songwriters have sought to capture that kind of night. Bob Seger and his beauty were in the alley or in the trusty woods, "working on mysteries without any clues." Meat Loaf and his girl struggled -- "Let me sleep on it" vs. "I wanna know right now, do ya love me?" Springsteen sang about the barefoot girl and the magic rat: "Together they take a stab at romance and disappear down Flamingo Lane." Much more recently, Joni Mitchell looked back on it lovingly: "Rock 'n' roll in the dashboard / Romance in the back of / Ray's Dad's Cadillac."

For that Jersey City girl and me, it was up on Boulevard East in Weehawken, at Hamilton Park. In the yellow Volkswagen. "Soul engines running through a night so tender."