Why do you think the city bureaucrats allowed the existence of a homeless shelter as horrific as the Martinique in the 1980s?

On Page 5, Kozol mentions that the play Les Misérables, about the poor of Paris in the 19th century, opened in Manhattan not far from the Martinique. Why do you think he draws this parallel?

Why do you think having the duck in his apartment was so important to Pietro, Christopher’s father?