Old New York’s sleigh carnival began in January

"Imagine a city where every January, when winter is at its most brutal and bone-chilling, New Yorkers parked their stages and omnibuses and excitedly hitched their horses to sleighs (like these in Central Park in the 1860s). What was dubbed the 'sleighing carnival' was an annual event in the 19th century metropolis (below, on Wall Street in 1834). Once snow was on the ground and it was packed hard into the road, large sleighs were brought out for public transportation; 'light' sleighs appeared too, kind of a personal carriage for joyriding, according to the Carriage Journal. ... 'The rapidity with which they are driven, at the rate of 10 or 12 miles an hour, is very delightful, and so exciting, that the most delicate females of New York think an evening drive, of 10 or 20 miles, even in the hardest frost, conducive to their amusement and health.' The sleighing carnival last through the end of the century. (Above left, in Prospect Park.) Snow arrived in New York mid-January 1892, recalls the Carriage Journal, 'and a regular sleighing carnival was the result.' ..."
Ephemeral New York