51 years ago today, a blizzard paralyzed Queens
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Mayor John Lindsay was in office when a 1969 blizzard crippled the entire city, especially Queens. Photo by Orlando Fernandez, World Telegram staff photographer - Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection.
By Jonathan Sperling
Exactly 51 years ago today, a snowstorm like no other wreaked havoc on Queens, killing 21 people in the borough and leading to 42 deaths citywide.
The storm, which also left 288 people injured, may be best remembered as an enormous blight on the administration of then-Mayor John Lindsay. But for those who lived and worked in Queens at the time, it was a crippling nightmare.
A total of 15 inches of snow fell on the city during the storm, the product of a nor'easter that pummeled the Northeastern United States, The New York Times wrote at the time. It wasn’t as much snowfall as a 1961 snowstorm that dropped more than 17 inches on the city, but the impact on Queens seemed worse as Lindsay was accused of giving preferential cleanup treatment to Manhattan.
Whatever the reason behind the slow cleanup — streets in Eastern Queens remained unplowed for more than a week — the effect was calamitous. More than 6,000 people were stranded at John F. Kennedy Airport as runways and roadways were clogged with snow drifts. Three people — two men and a woman from Flushing — were found dead in their car in the airport parking lot by a Port Authority employee, apparently from asphyxiation. Flights were halted at the airport, as helicopters worked to bring food to those who had been stranded for several nights. Eventually, helicopters began airlifting the stranded travelers to Manhattan.
At the smaller LaGuardia Airport, roadways were relatively clear, but flights were still halted and hundreds of travellers were left stranded.
Those who relied on transit for work suffered as well. The Long Island Rail Road and the city’s bus system ran sporadically — “if at all,” according to the Times — while “subway service was uncertain, or, in some outlying areas, non-existent.” At the Jamaica LIRR station, around 225 people were trapped overnight as the agency provided heated railroad cars.
Hospitals were especially impacted by absent workers, according to the Times. In Douglaston, a pregnant woman had to be airlifted by a police helicopter to Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. Another pregnant woman, in St. Albans, had her baby delivered by a flight surgeon at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field — then an active naval station — because she could not get to St. Albans Hospital. The baby was placed in a file cabinet drawer that had been converted into a crib.
Much of the calamity in Queens was caused by unplowed roads, a blame that fell heavily on Lindsay and city agencies. Six days after the storm, the Times estimated that 50,000 tons of garbage had piled up across the city, and reported that a snowplow driver with the Department of Sanitation was under investigation for taking a $100 bribe from Bayside residents in exchange for plowing their block.
In a statement to the media at the time, Lindsay said “it was clear to me early this week that something was wrong with the snow removal operation in east Queens.”
To aid with snow removal efforts, the city paid residents $2.50 an hour to shovel snow and $2.75 an hour to drive snow removal trucks — around $17.68 an hour and $19.44 an hour in today’s money.
In a show of goodwill, Lindsay attempted to drive to Eastern Queens, but was met with major driving difficulties, as well as scorn from residents. His limousine became stuck on the way to Rego Park, and he struggled to drive around even after switching to a truck with four-wheel drive. In Kew Gardens Hills, residents booed Lindsay and one woman screamed, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” In Fresh Meadows, a woman told the mayor, in true Queens fashion, “Get away, you bum.”
As the snow melted and the effects of the blizzard tapered off, the resilient residents of Queens carried on as normal, and Lindsay was even re-elected as mayor, perhaps boosted by the afterglow of another big Queens event — the Amazin’ Mets’ 1969 World Series win.
Still, Lindsay’s handling of the storm — especially in Queens — is largely considered a stain on his legacy.
Is it any wonder why John V. Lindsay Park is located in Manhattan and not in Queens?
