Vintage photos show Central Park's Hooverville, a shanty town surrounded by skyscrapers, built by the homeless for the homeless during the Great Depression

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Vintage photos show Central Park's Hooverville, a shanty town surrounded by skyscrapers, built by the homeless for the homeless during the Great Depression

Central Park Hooverville with Central Park West in the Background in 1932.NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images During the Great Depression, shanty towns, also known as "Hoovervilles," began to sprout up across the US. Named after President Herbert Hoover, they were made up of scraps of wood, tin, tar, and cardboard. The dilapidated shacks surrounded by some of New York's most impressive buildings caught people's imagination. In the early 1930s…