The TARDIS materialises in one of the corners of an eleven pointed Army base exterior wall, and the Doctor, Martha and I walk out.
"Where are we?" Martha asks.
"Ah, smell that Atlantic breeze. Nice and cold. Lovely. Martha, have you met our friend?" The Doctor asks, Martha turns around and looks up.
"Is that? Oh, my God. That's the Statue of Liberty."
"Gateway to the New World. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" I add.
"That's so brilliant. I've always wanted to go to New York. I mean the real New York, not the new, new, new, new, new one" Martha says.
"Well, there's the genuine article. So, good, they named it twice. Mind you, it was New Amsterdam originally. Harder to say twice. Now wonder it didn't catch on. New Amsterdam, New Amsterdam" the Doctor laughs.
"I wonder what year it is, because look, the Empire State Building's not even finished yet" Martha says pointing.
"Work in progress. Still got a couple floors to go, and if I know my history, that makes the date somewhere around..." I start tapping my chin, Martha picks up a copy of the New York Record which is lying on a bench close by.
"November first, 1930" Martha says.
"You're getting good at this" the Doctor says.
"Eighty years ago. It's funny, because you see all those old newsreels all in black and white like it's so far away, but here we are. It's real. It's now. Come on then, you two. Where do you want to go first?" Martha asks.
"I think our detour just got longer" I say looking at the newspaper.
"Hooverville Mystery Deepens. What's Hooverville?" Martha asks. A while later the three of us are walking through Central Park.
"Herbert Hoover, thirty first President of the USA, came to power a year ago. Up till then New York was a boom town, the Roaring Twenties, and then..." I start but I get cut off by Martha.
"The Wall Street Crash, yeah? When was that, 1929?"
"Yeah. Whole economy wiped out overnight. Thousands of people unemployed. All of a sudden, the huddled masses doubled in number with nowhere to go. So, they ended up here in Central Park" I say gesturing.
"What, they actually live in the park? In the middle of the city?" I nod.
"Ordinary people lost their jobs. Couldn't pay the rent and they lost everything. There are places like this all over America. No one's helping them. You only come to Hooverville when there's nowhere else to go."
"You thieving lowlife!" Suddenly a fight breaks out "for a single loaf!"
"I didn't touch it!"
"Somebody stole it!" A man comes out of the tent close by.
"Cut that out! Cut that out right now!" He breaks up the fight.
"He stole my bread!"
"That's enough! Did you take it?"
"I don't know what happened. He just went crazy."
"That's enough! Now, think real careful before you lie to me."
"I'm starving, Solomon" Solomon holds out his hand, and the man takes the bread out from inside his coat.
"We all starving. We all got families somewhere" Solomon looks at both men and gives each half of the loaf.
"No stealing and no fighting. You know the rules. Thirteen years ago, I fought in the Great War. A lot of us did. And the only reason we got through was because we stuck together. No matter how bad things get, we still act like human beings. It's all we got" Solomon says, the two fighters walk away.
