“It’s death out there,,,, people are dying everywhere. I saw bodies sticking in the snow. I was almost in their number.”
So spoke the infamous New York City political boss Roscoe Conkling after he barely escaped with his life from the ravages of the blizzard which gripped the North Eastern United States between March 11 and 14 in 1888. “The Great White Hurricane” as it was called in some quarters, or simply “The Great Blizzard of ‘88” as it was known to the New Yorkers who took the brunt of it, put New York into a stranglehold.
"The Blizzard of '88"
The Blizzard put a great many people on an equal footing with one another; a kind of “Great Equalizer”. For this legendary King maker nearly lost his life braving the elements in the same way that common everyday citizens did. It also brought out the best in some members of the merchant community while bringing out the worst in others. And while it had less to do with civic improvements in NYC than it appeared, it did indeed spur on many features of life which are today regular facets of everyday life in “the Big Apple”.
"The Blizzard of '88" Begins
The period began quietly enough. In fact the weather directly preceding the blizzard was unseasonably mild. There were heavy rains, but nothing to foretell the struggle that was about to ensue as the temperatures began to drop. But drop they did, and rapidly, and with them came incredible wind gusts. Snow came down in amazing profusion beginning shortly after midnight on March 12 and continued unabated for a full day and a half. The National Weather Service has estimated that this storm dumped FIFTY inches of snow in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and from 20 to thirty inches in Vermont. In New York City and New Jersey, it laid on a full 40 inches. This heavy snow fall was exacerbated by the strong winds, with 80 to 100 mph gusts being reported in some areas, with NYC getting a more modest, but still very strong 40 mph, and exceedingly low temperatures. Single digit thermometer readings prevailed throughout, with the daytime average of 9 degrees on March 13 being the coldest ever for March.
The Elevated Trains Collide
The snow came down so quickly that by 4:00 pm on that first day in one memory, “…that five minutes sufficed to obliterate the footprints of a man or a horse in the streets.” By midnight the snowdrifts rose to six, seven and ten feet in the city, with drifts of 30 to forty feet being reported elsewhere. Even the elevated trains were affected. A collision between trains was reported in a letter by James Speyer on March 14:
“ I was on an elevated train that collided with another, and for a few moments we thought everything was over for us. Then some ladders were brought along, and we climbed down to the street.”
The Snow and Ice Pull the Electric Lines Down
The weight of the ice and snow began to pull down the massive number of electrical wires which at that time clouded the skies above New York. Poles were either pulled down by the accumulated weight of the snow, or after being struck by falling trees. When this happened all over the town, sizzling and sparking live wires were along with mangled rubbish from the poles to obstruct thoroughfares that were already blocked by high snow drifts, and blown down signs.
This of course took out telephone and telegraph service not only in every part of New York, but with other cities as well. Service was interrupted effectively isolating New York, Washington, Boston, and even Montreal for days on end. In New York, company linemen refused to climb the poles to effect repairs during the blizzard, so the electrical companies decided mostly to shut down their service altogether, in anticipation of the inevitable breakdowns. Thus, by Monday evening, the only lighting to be found was from Gaslights, and candles, just as it had been in the past.
The Second Day - People Freeze to Death
By the second day, citizens who attempted to walk home found themselves in dire straights. People would drop from exhaustion in the streets, be covered by the snow and their frozen corpses would be found several days later. George D. Baremore, a prominent businessman told his clerks that the storm didn’t frighten him, and that he could walk home safely. He never made it. Mr. Baremore went missing that night and his frozen body was found only a few days later beneath a huge snowdrift, a mere block from his home.
"Boss Conkling" Nearly Conks Out
The aforementioned Roscoe Conkling, “Boss Conkling” who would fancied himself an athlete, and dared to brave the walk from Wall Street to his club on 25th street. He walked tilted against the storm winds for a full two miles to Union Square, which with the electric power having been cut off was dark. Conklin tried to cross it and quickly sank into his armpits in a snowdrift. It took him twenty minutes and his last ounce of strength to pull himself free. He at last reached his club four hours later, wherein he promptly collapsed into an exhausted heap on the floor of the foyer, mumbling the words of near doom with which this story began.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly....
As tends to happen with most disaster situations, the time of trial brought out both the best and the worst in the citizenry. Those hansom cab drivers who were able to keep their horses going through the snow-clogged streets lost no opportunity to gouge their customers. As reported by the suitably shocked “Harper’s Weekly” magazine:
“Twenty dollars was paid for a conveyance from Astor House to Madison Square and forty dollars for a cab from Wall Street to the Fifth Avenue Hotel!”
A grocer hiked the price that he charged for a pail of coal from ten cents to an entire dollar. But the customers got him back: he later found the wheels of his wagon replaced with nasty old ones accompanied by a message in chalk: “Fair exchange is no robbery.”
On the other hand, there were those merchants whose behavior was quite literally philanthropic. The city’s hotels, which were nearly overflowing in many instances gave cots in their lobbies to stranded customers, some for mere rental, and some even free of charge. Many bakeries around the city stayed open through the night, giving away their goods to people who were without food, and who simply couldn’t get any, or couldn’t afford it.
The Aftermath of "the Blizzard of '88"
In the end, the huge blizzard which literally paralyzed America's entire northeastern section in general and New York City in particular wound up taking over 400 lives, about half of those in NYC alone. The Blizzard was not as is often thought the only reason that most of NYC's electrical power lines were moved underground. There were proposals for this before city commissioners well before the Blizzard struck. But the Blizzard did provide the impetus to spur the approval of these measures. Previously, the political will to pass them had been lacking. But post-Blizzard, the will was indeed there. The same goes for the development of New York's famous (or infamous) underground subway system. And many, many stories were bantered around for years after by survivors of the Great Blizzard of '88."
Sources:
"Darkest Hours" by Robert Jay Nash, Nelson Hall Publ., New York, 1976.
Brian T. Bolten - I am a retired professional classical musician who hails originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, wherein I now live and work. Having attended ...
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