“It was impossible to see the sidewalks.
Intersections could no longer be distinguished, and one street looked like the
next. On Twenty-third Street, one of the busiest thoroughfares, a thoughtful
merchant put a sign on a corner-post: “This is 23rd Street.” The snow was
knee-deep, and the drifts, waist-high. The angry wind nipped at the hands of
pedestrians, knifed through their clothing, froze their noses and ears, blinded
them, hurled them backward into the slippery snow, its fury making it
impossible for them to get to their feet, flung them hatless and groping for
support against the walls, or left them to sleep, to sleep forever, under the snow.
A shopkeeper, a man in the prime of life, was found buried today, with only a
hand sticking from the snow to show where he lay. A messenger boy, as blue as
his uniform, was dug out of a white, cool tomb, a fit resting place for his
innocent soul, and lifted up in the compassionate arms of his comrades.
Another, buried to the neck, sleeps with two red patches on his white cheeks,
his eyes a filmy blue.”—Cuban poet and revolutionary Jose Marti, on the New
York City Blizzard of March 13, 1888, in “New York Under the Snow,” La Nacion
(Buenos Aires), April 27, 1888
Okay, maybe the unique thing about this weather
pattern we’re in now is not so much one big, monster storm, but one damn thing
after another…
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