For three long days in 1888 a snowstorm paralyzed the East Coast of the United States. The newspapers of the day competed with one another for names powerful enough to describe it. They called it the "Great White Hurricane"; "King Blizzard"; "the Snow Terror". We know it today as the Blizzard of 1888 and cities haven't been the same since. It altered the way we watch the weather. It changed the way we deal with emergencies. It transformed the very nature of city transportation. In New York, it built the subway.
