The Great Depression changed the everyday fabric of New Yorkers' lives and the composition of the city. These images, from the collections of our partners, bring the depression and its trials to life.

In October 1929, the prosperous Roaring Twenties crashed to an end. In the 1920s the Stock Market boomed. Shares in companies soared and millions of ordinary Americans invested their life savings, in the hopes of turning a profit. Some people even began taking out loans in order to invest in the Stock Market. While things looked good on the surface, the 1920s were plagued by deeper economic issues. Industrial production declined, unemployment crept upwards, and the agricultural sector struggled. The Stock Market bubble popped on what became known as "Black Tuesday." The sudden drop in value of stocks led to billions of dollars in lost revenue. Many banks shuttered as a result. This fueled panic among Americans who rushed to the banks to withdraw their lifesavings. Before the Great Depression, people's money in the bank was not insured. If the bank closed, people lost all of their savings! So many people went to the banks looking for their money and many banks simply did not have enough cash on hand to meet the demand. In a chain reaction of events, people lost their jobs, life's savings, and homes. From 1929 throughout the 1930s, the Great Depression wrecked havoc on the lives of Americans, and New Yorkers in particular. It would take the immense industrial demand of WWII and a dramatic increase in government regulation and spending to really get the United States out of this economic rut. During this decade of depression, Americans' lives transformed dramatically. New York Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards 8.5b,c, & 11.7c. For Teachers: Great Depression Lesson Plan

"Riverside Drive, north from West 80th Street, showing the transitional aspects of this marginal thoroughfare. In the foreground is one of the last squatters shacks. The row of buildings at the right is at the S. E. corner of West 82nd Street, ca. 1895." This area of Riverside Drive and Riverside Park (across the street behind the structure in this image) would see occupation by a number of shanty towns in the 19th and 20th century. Well known as a Hooverville during the Great Depression, it was also home to a shanty town earlier. The Hudson River was lined with these communities but as Riverside Drive and the Upper West Side in general began to be developed in the 1880s and 1890s, these types of dwellings were demolished. The notation on this photo suggests that this structure, still standing in 1895, was the last of the shacks to go.