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L.E.S. lenswoman Rebecca Lepkoff dies at age 98

Rebecca Lepkoff at a recent memorial for her friend Gloria Channon in Ulster, County.  Photo by Tequila Minsky
Rebecca Lepkoff at a recent memorial for her friend Gloria Channon in Ulster, County. Photo by Tequila Minsky

Famed photographer Rebecca Lepkoff, who documented the Lower East Side — the neighborhood where she grew up and continued to live — died in Townshend, Vermont, Sun., Aug. 17. She was 98. Her series of photographs of the Lower East Side was taken in the 1940s and 1950s. Lepkoff lived part of the year in Vermont, where she photographed the Pikes Falls hippie community, according to an obituary in the Commons, a Vermont publication. In New York, she was a member of the Photo League, a group that strove to photograph how ordinary people lived. “She lived a long and incredible life,” her son, Jesse, told the Commons. “She was an amazing artist, mother and person.”