It was 30 years ago today...
 

Boston loves to wallow in its history. Maybe it’s because a lot of stuff happened here (but then perhaps it also makes it easier to forget about things like losing the Super Bowl). Today, the airwaves are full of recaps of an event that happened – or at least started – thirty years ago today.

I refer, of course, to the Blizzard of ’78. To be fair, Boston was more or less the epicenter of the blizzard. The region was shut down for close to two weeks and once-in-a-century high tides wiped out entire coastal communities. People still talk about where they were and how they spent those weeks. We had a neighbor whose car was one of the thousands caught out on Route 128 and who trudged a mile through three-foot-deep snow to get to the home of someone he knew. He didn’t get home for a week. Others just knocked on doors of houses close to the highway and were taken in.

I, too, remember distinctly where I was during the Blizzard of ’78. And, yes, it’s a travel story.

I had just accepted a new job which entailed moving from Chicago to New York City and February 7 was the day my wife and I were to fly to our new home to look for living accommodations. The blizzard, as everyone now knows, came out of nowhere. A few inches of snow were expected in Boston and just flurries in New York. Our flight left O’Hare at 7 a.m. with a scheduled arrival at LaGuardia at 10:45. A few minutes before we were to touch down, all three New York airports closed in rapid succession. Our pilot frantically searched for an airport – any airport – that was open. The lone choice was Hartford. We landed some time after 11 a.m. – the last plane in before that airport, too, closed.

United Airlines offered us the choice of a motel in Hartford for the duration or a bus to take us to New Haven where, we were vaguely assured, we could catch a train into the city. Most people opted for the motel. Being adventurers, we boarded the bus. It got only ten miles out of Hartford before skidding into a guardrail (and, beyond the guardrail was a thirty-foot drop into a ravine). An hour later, a second bus arrived and we transferred to it. Two hours later, we had made the fifty-mile journey to New Haven.

We all stood, huddled on a platform with no idea of whether our promised train would come or not. Miraculously, one did after “only” 45 minutes. It has departed Boston at 6 a.m. and only now – at 3 p.m. – had made it to New Haven. It was the first and only train to get out of Boston that day. We jammed ourselves and our suitcases into a packed car and the train limped out of the station, pushing eighteen inches of snow in front of it.

It took until after 5 p.m. to make it to Penn Station and we were greeted by the sight of an unexpected blizzard closing down a city. Seventh Avenue was unplowed under more than two feet of snow. By sheer luck, my company had booked a room for three nights at the Hotel Pennsylvania across the street from the station (it was just a block from my new office). In a brilliant and (for me) an unusual flash of foresight, I had called my new employer from Hartford and asked them to have someone walk to the hotel and check us in, then give the key in an envelope to the concierge. We crossed our fingers that they would.

The lobby of the hotel was a sea of humanity camping out for the duration. Commuter trains to New Jersey weren’t running and even the above-ground portion of the subway had system closed down.

But we had our room. The Hotel Pennsylvania wasn’t a whole lot nicer then than it is today (I read that its days are numbered because of the pending construction of a new Madison Square Garden), but it was shelter from a storm when we needed it.

The blizzard turned out to be propitious: we bought a home the next day. We could get out to view properties while others couldn’t. The first house we were shown the following day was a brownstone in Boerum Hill. We fell in love with it at first sight. We trudged through snow to see other homes, but that was the one we wanted. We made an offer and asked our realtor where we might go for dinner while the owners mulled our bid. She suggested a new restaurant down under the Brooklyn Bridge called the River Café. We had a terrific dinner, interrupted several times by phone calls from our broker. By the time dessert was served, we were told we had our brownstone.

When the blizzard had run its course, we returned to Chicago, packed our belongings, and set out for our new life. Friends who have heard our story ask us why we didn’t just opt for the Hartford motel and wait out the storm. To which we say, ‘What? And miss that experience?’

If you’re not an adventurer, you just don’t get it.

Great story.

I lived in Boston at the time. Left work in the early afternoon, bought provisions for a few days and stayed with my girlfriend (now my wife) at her apartment in Cambridge.

It was magic for a few days. People traveled on cross-country skis down major roads. The T stopped running. The state made us stay home and paid us unemployment. I think there was a $500 fine for driving a car for anything other than an emergency. Patrons of at least one bar were reported to have hurled beer bottles at workers trying to beat a path through snow drifts and rescue them.

About the time the food and wine ran low a few local restaurants opened up. Eventually I made it back to my place in the North End, where my neighbors expressed relief that I'd made it through safely.

Thanks for the reminder.

Loved your "adventure story"

I lived alone in Worcester and was the last one to make it up the hill to my 3rd floor apartment in a 3-decker. When the storm was done and the sun came out I looked down to the parking area and could not see my car. Everything was totally covered. My boyfriend (now DH) was able to get on the roads after a few days and brought me provisions. The store down the street actually opened and I could walk down there. It was really a mess everywhere. People died in their cars on highways there was so much snow. That is why we live in FL now!

Ah, the memories! Thanks for starting the thread, Neal, especially with the only positive story I've ever read about the Hotel Schmennsylvania.

Having no clue what was happening with the weather, I picked my daughter up at school in the Back Bay and attempted to deliver her to her gymnastics class at the YWCA on Clarendon St. Class cancelled!

We trudged home to Joy Street on Beacon Hill, spent the next 5 days in a giant block party with hibachis perched on the snowdrifts, skiing on the Common, and sledding down Pinckney Street, which had apparently ben many kids' and adults' longtime dream. We lost our electricity for a total of 4 hours; one benefit of living a block from the State House, I think.

One day, I rode with the National Guard to distribute emergency food vouchers in a neighborhood where household budgets ran paycheck-to-paycheck, and there was no paycheck that week nor the next.

Meanwhile, my future husband was one of those stranded on Route 128, and he spent the night at the Dedham movie theater before hiking to a friend's house in West Roxbury.

The corner store still had the monthly neighborhood newspaper that had come out on February 1 with photos of the January 20 storm, headlined, "Storm of the Century". The two feet of snow from that storm hadn't melted at all yet, so with the February storm on top of it, we ended up with some spectacular heaps of snow that took weeks to remove.

I was senior at UMass (aka "ZooMass") Amherst. Although we couldn't make it to class for a week, we surely were able to get to the liquor stores and have snowball fights of epic proportions, one dorm against the other. They told me I had good time...

I had gotten married on Feb. 4. DH and I went to Philadelphia for our honeymoon. The whole place closed down for 2 days. Not quite what we planned on. We were able to get out of the hotel and eat in Chinatown. Also made it to a 76's game using the subway. At least in Boston they have snowplows. In Philadelphia, they aren't expecting snow so have few if any plows.

It was still 4 months before I was born. My parents lived in Western MA so they have told me how much snow they had and how they were trapped in the house for 2 days.

tchoiniere, that story would be so much better if it was NINE months before you were born.

My then boyfriend (now husband) lived in Watertown, MA and I in Arlington. After it finally stopped snowing he decided it would be fun to walk from his apartment to mine (about 5 miles) thru the snowdrifts and he arrived unannounced on my doorstep. After 25 years of marriage this still is perhaps the most romantic thing he has ever done.

Anonymous,Agreed that that would have made for the better story. However, it was 9 months to the day that they bought their house that I was born.

I was an unemployed teacher at the time. My husband and I had planned a trip from Balto. to NYC. We heard that it was going to snow and of course he wanted to cancel the trip. I said no- let's leave a little earlier and beat the storm. (As all easteners know, snow storms that are coming from the south are the "big" ones. And boy do teachers get excited about those! Even unemployed teachers.) We made it to NYC when the snow was just starting. Our first stop- the World Trade Center. It still gives me chills whenever I think about it. It was so beautiful. We were at the top of the WTC and it started to snow. It was like being in heaven and watching the flakes fall from above. Afterwards we checked into our hotel. Can't remember the name of it but it's one where all the airline pilots stayed at the time. The next day we awoke to 2 ft. of snow. Let me tell you how beautiful NYC is when there is no traffic. Went to breakfast in the hotel and had many problems with service. Anyway, we walked all around the city and loved it! Came to to our room and noticed that the New York Times crossword puzzle was done. Who did it, we wondered. Turns out the housekeeping staff sat in our room and did the puzzle. I wrote a letter to the manager. My husband also called the manager. Manager asked my husband if I like chocolates. Of course he said yes. He gave us a free corner suite for another weekend, wine, fruit basket and box of Godiva chocolates. Wow!! Little did he know that I would have been happy with just the chocolates! We always remember that New York stay. And I always get chills thinking about the towers, their beauty and the destruction years later. True story.

A chilling story in so many ways!

Thirty years ago today we were shoveling snow. Probably thirty years ago tomorrow and the day after too. And then we were walking down the street with everyone else in town, some pulling sleds to bring home beer (and a few had groceries).

What a wonderful group of recollections! It's amazing how many people recall it (even those who were in utero!) so many years later. Anonymous, I think your tale of life on Beacon Hill takes the cake for seeing it through with a 'c'est la vie' attitude. I hope the wine cellar was well stocked!

boston.com has a few articles about the storm and recollections about it.

http://www.boston.com/news/specials/blizzard_of_78/

I was living in New York at the time and my boyfriend (now husband) was in Vermont. NYC did not get as much snow as Boston although there was enough in to create quite a mess. Vermont had a lot, too, but people are more used to dealing with it here

For some reason my husband had made a tape of Robert J. Lurtsema's morning pro musica program the day of the blizzard, and the forecast said there might be "10 or more inches"--guess that was technically right

I remember that we had THREE WHOLE DAYS off from school. Absolutely unprecedented, as far as we were concerned, since it takes a LOT to close down NYC public schools. We were living on Roosevelt Island in the middle of the East River, and staffers could not get to the long-term care hospitals on the Island, so they asked the community center to get out the word for volunteers. They would take anyone over ten, and myself and most of my fellow sixth-graders wound up spoon feeding severely mentally handicapped children.

The Blizzard of 1978...

I was working at a news wire service in Hartford and as the storm dumped more and more snow, it became increasingly impossible for staffers to report for the evening shift so I stayed and worked for many extra hours. Finally, in the early morning, after the snow plows had carved a path on Interstate 84 in each direction, I got in my trusty 1968 Volkswagen Beetle and drove onto the interstate headed west to pick up a staffer who was hiking to the interstate from his house. It was weird beyond description driving past the white hulks of cars and trucks that had been abandoned on the side of the interstate. There were no lights on the interstate, and I drove at a very slow rate of speed. Finally, I reached the exit ramp where my relief staffer was waiting all bundled up with a big backpack filled with his sleeping bag and a change of clothes.

A day or two later, Gov Ella Grasso had the Natl Guard in Connecticut fly her in a helicopter, along with news photographers and reporters, including me, to survey the extent of the blizzard in eastern Connecticut. In the snow someone wrote "ELLA HELP" in letters so large they could be seen clearly from the helicopter. The photograph of this plea from a snowbound region said it all. I wrote a story about the helicopter trip, describing what could be seen of the New England countryside under several feet of snow, and it was widely used with a photograph of the "ELLA HELP" message.

I myself was unable to get home to northeastern Connecticut for five days. My husband was away on business and my father-in-law, who lived with us, was home alone. After the storm subsided, my father-in-law telephoned me in a panic because he could not open the back door of the house. I called a neighbor to bring a shovel and make a path to the back door. The snow was as high as the windowsill of our first floor windows. Luckily, another neighbor took photos of our house, one of which sits in a frame in my living room today.

We lived in a suburb of CT during that storm and I remember my parents bringing a mattress to our finished basement where we kept a fire going and we all slept together in front of the fire (mom, dad , brother and me). they made it seem like such a fun adventure! I was still a child then and I remember the snow drifts being twice as tall as i was! It is one of my favorite memories of my childhood and brings tears to my eyes since i can no longer share that memory with my parents. Thanks for posting this Neal- it was nice thinking about that time.