Appropos of the recent heavy snowfall....

At one point this past year, 49 of 50 U.S. states had snow on the ground. And it keeps coming down, with 20" of snow thus far in Chicago, 37" in Philadelphia, and a ridiculous 56" in New York. While this winter has been unusually brutal, it has happened before. Below is a letter from 1948 from the Mayor of Boston to the then President of M.I.T. pleading for new ideas for snow removal - flamethrowers were even suggested (but dismissed in the reply).

Click the images to enlarge