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FAITH COVINGTON HAD never seen her parents cry, not in all her thirteen years on this planet. Instinctively, she turned away. But there was no easy way out. When she looked to her left, then to her right, she saw only the cause of their misery. Shanties made of scrap lumber and cardboard boxes, bits of plastic and canvas tarpaulins extended along the banks of New York’s mighty Hudson River for as far as she could see.
The year was 1934 and America was mired in the worst economic depression the country had ever seen. The men and women and children who lived in the shanties—and there were thousands upon thousands of them—had nowhere else to go. Evicted from their apartments and homes, they’d drifted to the river and erected whatever shelters they could. Trying to make a life out of nothing.
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“No, they’re afraid that what happened to these men will happen to them, too. Keep in mind, not all that long ago, these men probably had jobs and families. Now they’ve lost everything.” Margaret’s mouth tightened as she thought of her own husband. Struggling to maintain her composure, she nodded to herself. “Some people think poverty is contagious. They try to keep as far away from it as possible.”
A man limped up to the window, an old man; what was left of his hair was now snow white. He was gaunt, with flaring cheekbones and hollow cheeks, and his thin lips were spread in a humorless smile that revealed several missing teeth.
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