Where Cost Not Race Mattered
Breadline, McCauley Water Street Mission under Brooklyn Bridge, New York, circa 1931, Courtesy of the Library of Congress
During the Great Depression one of FDR’s New Deal Program was the Works Project Administration (WPA). It hired unemployed writers. America Eats was one of research projects they worked on. Here’s an observation from one WPA writer. In Third Avenue and Bowery large restaurants, the service was rough but civil and “no color lines are drawn, there is friendliness between races, and there are many races. The same could be said for the Breadline at the McCauley Water Street Mission under Brooklyn Bridge.