Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart Radio and

Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book,

all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Walk around New York City today and you're surrounded by a feast for the senses.

You might hear sidewalk conversations or a subway car rumbling

underfoot. You might also smell peanuts roasting on the stand on the corner and

you'll definitely see massive buildings reaching toward the sky overhead.

Oh, and cars, lots of cars, spewing exhaust into the air

and honking at all hours while the streets clog up.

New York City today can feel almost claustrophobic with everything going on around us, but it wasn't always like this. Once upon a time, it looked a lot different.

1800s, New York was just becoming the hustling bustling metropolis it is today.

The streets were packed with horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians.

Stores line the avenues, selling all kinds of goods before long chain coffee shops and fast food

places took over.

But even though the city was growing and evolving, it still faced the same problem as every

city in America. The weather.

Summers were blisteringly hot and winters in New York were especially hard to face.

Feet of snow would bring everything to a halt, but New Yorkers didn't let flurries and blizzards

slow them down. If anything, they got faster.

In January of 1830, the bitter cold had led to inches of snow coating the ground, trees, and storefronts.

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