Why does New York bury it’s utilities?

Imagine walking down the streets of NYC and in between the awesome skyscraper-filled view and you are a bunch of utility wires hanging from the poles. Not that they are awful. Some of the suburbs have hanging utility wires and they look fine. But in NYC that is not something you would expect.

The practice of burying wired utilities started in the late 1800’s when the mayor ordered all utility wires be buried in light of the catastrophic effects of The Great Blizzard of 1888. This blizzard was blamed for approximately 1.2 billion in damages (2008 figures) and a paralyzed city which had no power & railroad services. At the same time it left many people confined to their homes. In some cases for up to a week.