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Flashback: Hoovervilles of New York
By
Jen Carlson
Published Feb 8, 2010
Modified Feb 8, 2010
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Feb 8, 2010
Modified Feb 8, 2010
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Have you seen these shots of a shanty town set up on Mercer and Houston Streets during the Great Depression? That's right, these (first two) photographs of men in suits reading magazines, smoking cigarettes and lingering about their alternative abodes aren't from the web pages of Unhappy Hipsters—they were taken by Berenice Abbott in 1935.
Chances are you've seen photos of the Hooverville set up in Central Park around that time; though residents there were booted from that encampment before the Depression ended. According to a NY Times article from September 1932, ”The raid was staged on the orders of Deputy Parks Commissioner John Hart, who explained that the Park Department, much as it regretted it, intended to raze the settlement this morning. ‘We don’t want to do it, but we can’t help it,’ Mr. Hart said, adding that although the men had maintained good order, had built comfortable shacks and furnished them as commodiously as they could, there were no water or sanitary facilities near the settlement.”
EphemeralNY points out that other Hoovervilles were set up along the Hudson in Riverside Park, 10th Street on the East River and in Red Hook off Columbia Street (also pictured in the above gallery).
Tagged
1930s
central park
flashback
great depression
Hooverville
houston street
hut
Mercer Street
red hook
shanty town
unemployed
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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