I just googled NYC blizzard 1888 to see pictures. Holy cow, that's crazy.
What I'd like to know is, was there a quick warm up right after? If so, the flooding would have been tremendous. Because I recall winter of 93/94, it either snowed or iced every Wednesday for like 6 weeks straight. Finally one day we hit like 60 something and it just flooded.
Can't imagine NYC in 1888 being able to handle that.