Thousands of men spent thousands of hours on New York street corners during the Depression due to the efforts of a man named Joseph Sicker,  chairman of the Unemployed Relief Committee of the International Apple Growers Association.

Sicker started “an apple selling crusade” during National Apple Week in September, 1930. With a startup fund of $10,000 donated by the produce industry, he arranged to sell boxes of apples to the unemployed at rates that were about 10 percent below market price.

Read more in Depression Apples by James McWilliams on freakonomics.com (2010)