New York Record

The New York Record was a New York City daily newspaper. On 1 November 1930 it reported on the mystery of men missing from the city's Hooverville. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan)

In 2012, Amy Pond read an issue of the newspaper while visiting the city with the Eleventh Doctor and Rory Williams. The headline reported that the Detroit Lions won the Superbowl. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)

Saturday November 1st 1930
Beyond the reports below, the front page of the paper had at least one further story: "Panama Canal runs dry?".

Hooverville mystery deepens
The paper's main story was on reports of disappearances form the city's Hooverville, as quoted below. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan)


 * -As reports of disappearances from the city's Hooverville flood in, should there be cause for alarm, or is this an elaborate hoax aimed at the city's municipal government?


 * City officials have dismissed claims that New Yorkers are being abducted from the cities' Hoovervilles, as 'scare mongering and an attempt to shame the government into pouring money into the welfare system.'


 * The Mayor refused to comment but his deputy Howard Tibello is quoted as saying 'If a party of cranks believe that instilling fear into the hearts of New Yorkers' will in any way help a city that is already on its knees, then there's even less hope for this state's recovery than I'd hoped.'


 * Tibello's critics are appalled at his cynicism and call for the threat to be taken seriously. Others claim that although reports of disappearances may be valid, they can be accounted for by misunderstandings and lack of communication, and as such there is no cause for alarm.


 * See the behind the scenes section for further information.

Fighting to provide - desperation reaches an all time high on the city's bread lines

 * Scuffles have broken out at many of the cities bread lines and soup kitchens, over the alleged unfair allocation of welfare and provisions.


 * Some claim that those in receipt of a 'mothers pension' should not be taking food out of the mouths of people whose only form of welfare is the bread line. It is claimed that the system discriminates unfairly against those women who are divorced, deserted or in minority groups.


 * The tragedy is that many of the men who have deserted their wives, leaving them ineligible for the mothers pension, only did so out of desperation at their failure to provide.


 * The municipal government assert that they are handing out as much welfare as the city can reasonably afford, although social campaigners claim their pockets could be deeper.

Railroad profits run out of track
The New York Record reported on a predicted downturn in profits for the North Western railway. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan)


 * After a steady increase in railroad profits, improving year on year whilst other industries have suffered, this months report for the North Western railway shows a steep drop in profits. Business forecasters are predicting a gain next month, but some are more sceptical claiming this is the beginning of a downturn rather than an isolated drop in profits.

Behind the scenes
The New York Record is not a real newspaper. Although the edition Martha Jones reads is explicitly dated, the one that Amy Pond reads is not. This allows for the possibility that Amy is not reading a 2012 edition at all, even though the Doctor does specifically state that they are in 2012 New York.

In the real world, the Superbowl headline would be out of place for several reasons. The Superbowl is played at the end of the NFL season, generally the first or second weekend of February, which is winter in New York. The appearance of Central Park in the episode clearly suggests it is spring at the time. Also, as of 2013, the Detroit Lions of the National Football League have never appeared in the Superbowl.

Hooverville mystery deepens (continued)
While the majority of the main story featured in Deleks in Manhattan remains unseen or illegible, the complete front page of the paper was uploaded as a graphic to the Series 4 version of the Doctor Who website. Most likely due to the knowledge that very little of the paper would be seen on screen, production staff chose to repeat the text of the main story nearly three times to fill the page.

The article below is a continuation of the above.


 * Michael Warner of the Central employment bureau told us that New Yorkers' have been leaving in their droves to search for work outside the city boundary. He believes recorded numbers are merely the tip of the iceberg, the true number of those abandoning New York being impossible to calculate. It is highly conceivable that many of these voluntary moves could have been misinterpreted as disappearances.


 * Sources from within the Hooverville camps themselves refuse this theory however, saying that attributing disappearances to 'lack of communication' is an insult to the communities that are struggling to survive. Edwin Summerville, who runs the soup Kitchen off 24th Street spoke to us yesterday and stated that 'poverty has not stopped people looking out for one another; if anything it has strengthened their community spirit. All this talk of misunderstandings is just a convenient way for officials to ignore the fact that the disappearances are all too real.'


 * As yet no one has witnessed a moment of abduction, but reports of unearthly sounds have been made around the time of these disappearances. So amidst all the speculation, the questions remain: where are these people going, and if they're not leaving of their own free will, then who is taking them?