On This Day In History: Brooklyn Bridge Frozen Over During Blizzard Of 1888

DUMBO, BROOKLYN — We think we're in for a big snow storm on Tuesday, but let's hope it won't compare to the blizzard of 1888. On this day in history in 1888, New York City experienced a massive snow storm that coated the city in as much as five feet of icy fluff, with snow drifts piling up as tall as thirty feet all over the city, according to newspapers at the time.

A photo from the NYC Department of Records shows a Brooklyn Bridge frozen over with snow. The East River at one point was said to be so frozen over that people could walk across it from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

"As early as 7 o'clock the snow had got a good deal too deep for stout men to travel in with ease and the rapidity with which it grew worse was simply marvelous," an article in the New York Times read. "The wind seemed to have a rotatory (sic) motion as well as a terrible direct propelling force."

After the great blizzard of 1888, the people of NYC realized their above-ground means of intercommunication and transit were insufficient. The city began to understand it should build an underground subway system so trains would be less vulnerable to inclement weather.

"It was not supposed that a snow storm could seriously affect travel on the trestles, but before 10 o'clock all attempt at regularity in dispatching and running trains was abandoned, and not one-tenth of the number of trains usually in progress on the roads were in motion," an article in the New York Sun read.

The first underground subway line, the Interborough Rapid Transit Subway, was finished 16 years later in 1904.

h/t [NYC Subway]

Photo via public domain