THE GREAT BLIZZARD OF 1888.
THE GREAT BLIZZARD OF 1888.
If there’s one thing New Yorkers enjoy tweaking about, it’s snow. We eat adverse commuting conditions for breakfast, but put a sprinkling of frozen water on the ground and the general population swoons like a Tennessee Williams character. Where are my thinsulate boots! Find my cross-country skis! My Siberian fur hunting hat! I mean, it’s just snow, guys. And while we’ve had a bit of the cold white stuff recently,?it’s nothing like we did that one time back in 1888.?Now THAT was a snowstorm to remember! (Cue the Ken Burns soundtrack.)
‘Twas was a brutal beast nicknamed “The Great White Hurricane,” and over 400 New Yorkers perished during this freak blizzard which happened to occur on March 12th of 1888.?There was an average of five feet of snow dumped on Gotham, with 60 mile an hour winds creating drifts reportedly reaching from fifteen to fifty feet deep downtown.?4-wheel drive? Hardly! This was back in the day when your vehicle’s horsepower literally referred to actual horses. As was the style of the time, the local papers hyperventilated floridly about the general state of chaos around town. The venerable tabloid paper The New York Sun ran a story the day trumpeting,?“BLIZZARD WAS KING. The Metropolis Helpless Under Snow.”?Here’s an excerpt:
"It was as if New York had been a burning candle upon which nature had clapped a snuffer, leaving nothing of the city’s activity but a struggling ember… At a quarter past 6 o’clock, when the extremely modified sunlight forced its way to earth, the scene in the two great cities that the bridge unites was remarkable beyond any winter sight remembered by the people.?The streets were blocked with snowdrifts.?The car tracks were hid, horse cars were not in the range of possibilities, a wind of wild velocity howled between the rows of houses, the air was burdened with soft, wet, clinging snow, only here and there was a wagon to be seen, only here and there a feebly moving man...The city’s surface was like a wreck-strewn battlefield”.
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Feebly moving men on a wreck-strewn battlefield?! That sounds hellish,?not to mention spats and stovepipe hats probably don’t do much to keep you warm.?All in all, it took the city over a week to dig out and get back to normal. So later on today when someone inevitably says, “wow, this weather has really been something lately!” you’ll be certain to endear yourself by professorially educating them about what genuinely adverse winter conditions are like, as witnessed in the?Great New York Blizzard of 1888.
(Bonus: one positive thing did manage come out of the Great White Hurricane… Send me a note if you’re curious and I’ll tell you!)