New York and New Jersey were jolted by a 4.8
earthquake on , a rare occurrence in the region. But we can’t say we weren’t warned. Scientists have been predicting The Big One could hit
New York at some point. And the predictions date back over a century. The illustrations above ran in the November 1924 issue of magazine. The magazine was founded by sci-fi legend Hugo Gernsback, and these were very earnest predictions for the future of New York. The drawings depicted how Manhattan might crumble under its own weight in the event of an earthquake, all because there were “caves or pockets” underneath the surface. From the : There were a number of articles published in the mid-1920s about earthquakes in urban areas after that particularly deadly quake hit
Japan on . The event would claim over 140,000 lives after the
tsunami and fires ripped through Tokyo and Yokohama. Incredibly, some people of the 1920s blamed for causing earthquakes. But given the ridiculous beliefs of people on
Social Media , maybe we shouldn’t judge them too harshly. The 1920s was a heyday for anxiety about New York getting hit with an earthquake, but the rest of the 20th century also saw different predictions about possible earthquakes in New York, all the way up to a 1995 article in magazine, which warned something big could be ahead. Click through the slideshow for more examples from the past 100 years. Will New York Be Destroyed? Will New York Be Destroyed? The 1924 article in quoted Professor David Todd, an astronomer at Amherst College, who was concerned about the possibility of a major earthquake in New York. But readers were told not to worry. There was a solution! It just happened to involve drilling a mine shaft deep within the Earth to let gas escape. The potential consequences of drilling into the Earth weren’t out of nowhere, of course. Fracking has caused a number of earthquakes in the . Skyscrapers Vulnerable Skyscrapers Vulnerable The October 1924 issue of magazine also looked at the issue, focusing on the immense weight of buildings in Manhattan, which might cause problems down the line. The news item was relatively small, but ran right next to a very cool photo of a small phonograph player modeled by a , this being the 1920s and all. Was That a Subway Train? Was That a Subway Train? Unlike the predictions in and , this article tried to calm down any fears with some reassurances that sound pretty interesting in hindsight. The September 23, 1923, explained: The idea that an earthquake in New York might be mistaken for a loud truck or a subway train definitely happened, as anyone who was on X could tell you Friday morning. “I know NYC has warped my brain bc the earthquake happened and for the first 10 seconds as my building shook I was like ‘is that a train? wait…I don’t live above the subway,’” writer David Mack expressing the same confusion that was echoed repeatedly on social media. 1924 Imagined an Earthquake in 1932 1924 Imagined an Earthquake in 1932 The issue of magazine also tackled the issue of earthquakes in an article that imagined the aftermath of a horrible New York earthquake in 1932: The article went on to describe how 300,000 people had been “asphyxiated and roasted underground,” in the subway system. And 300 “leading statesmen” were killed in this hypothetical future scenario because a big political convention was in town. Even the president and Secretary of War were killed, according to the article’s fantastical imagining. There were also refugees in Central Park, of course, based on Scribner’s telling of it. Yikes. Worries About Nuclear Power Plants Worries About Nuclear Power Plants The April 29, 1976 edition of the also ran a short piece syndicated from the New York News Dispatch about worries from scientists about the future of an earthquake in New York. And one of the biggest fears was that something might happen to the , a nuclear power plant on the Hudson River that ceased operations in 2021. Notably, this short article was published less than three years before the 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island, which wasn’t caused by an earthquake. New York Magazine’s Big One New York Magazine’s Big One The December 11, 1995 issue of magazine also tackled the issue, talking with experts at length about the dangers of a big earthquake in Manhattan. It presents a humorous scene. But given everything we know about how disasters actually play out here in the 21st century, it probably wouldn’t be quite so funny to the people living through it.