How about going down to the waterfront and to the ghettos? I’ve read the photo documentary How the Other Half Lives published by Jacob Riis. I’d like to see if his facts were true.” “I don’t own this rig, and I ain’t allowed to go certain places that you probably want to see,” the driver said. “But I can take you to some areas where you’ll get your eyes full.” Thanks to the driver, Allen had a tour of part of the sprawling city of New York. After an hour, he had seen enough to know that the reports he’d heard of the pressures caused by industrialization, sprawling urban cities, violent labor uprisings, economic depression, and fears of the middle classes in the cities were all true. He’d also witnessed firsthand the difference between his upbringing and Dora’s—seen enough to realize that if he’d ever harbored dreams that he and Dora could share a life, it was a false hope. He noticed more than one building that had the name Porter on it, and it was beyond his comprehension to understand how any one man could have so much money.
