The Doctor, Willow and Martha land in 1930s Manhattan where the homeless are being stolen away in the night. Not only that, some old foes from their past have reappeared.
***
The TARDIS materialised in the corner of a large wall. The doors swung open to reveal the Doctor, Willow and Martha stepping out into the warm breeze. "Where are we?" asked Martha.
He inhaled the oxygen around them, enlightened by it. "Ah, smell that Atlantic breeze. Nice and cold. Lovely." The Doctor glanced up at a familiar sight. "Martha, have you met my friend?"
The women turned around to see the Statue of Liberty stood right in front of them. "Is that? Oh, my God. That's the Statue of Liberty."
"It's not even made out of stone, it was formed from copper and steel," Willow mentioned. "Not many people know that actually."
"Gateway to the New World. Give me you tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." The Doctor quoted.
They gazed out at the New York landscape in wonder. "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."
"Well, there's the genuine article. So good, they named it twice. Mind you, it was New Amsterdam originally. Harder to say twice. No wonder it didn't catch on. New Amsterdam, New Amsterdam."
"I wonder what year it is, because look, the Empire State Building's not even finished yet." She pointed out.
"Work in progress. Still got a couple floors to go, and if I know my history, that makes the date somewhere around..."
As he tried to decipher the correct time, Martha picked up a discarded newspaper from a bench. "November first 1930."
The Doctor and Willow shared a glance, unexpectedly impressed by her. "Wow, that's really good guessing."
"You're getting good at this." He added.
It was then that they saw her reading the newspaper, recognising their stupidity. "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." The Doctor took the newspaper from her hand, reading it for himself. "Come on then, you two. Where do you want to go first?"
"I think our detour just got longer." The Doctor responded.
"What is it?" wondered Willow.
He displayed the front page, Martha reading the headline curiously. "'Hooverville Mystery Deepens.' " It certainly sparked their interest. "What's Hooverville?"
***
The trio wandered through Central Park as the Doctor explained. "Herbert Hoover, thirty-first President of the USA, came to power a year ago. Up till then, New York was a boomtown, the Roaring Twenties, and then-"
"The Wall Street Crash, yeah?" surmised Martha. "When was that, 1929?"
He continued. "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."
"What, they actually live in the park? In the middle of the city?" she questioned.
"Yep," Willow replied. "It still happens in the present day. Thousands of people live in favelas and shantytowns like Hooverville, continually ignored by the general public."
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The Girl Who Drifted | doctor who (Book 3)
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