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When the streets were their playground

Photos by Rebecca Lepkoff
Photos by Rebecca Lepkoff

Rebecca Lepkoff, the photographer who died Aug. 17 at 98, famously captured the street life of her native Lower East Side in the 1940s and ’50s. At left, in a game of kick the can, “prisoners” who were tagged and in “jail” are liberated as a boy kicks the can. The wall is covered with “Vote Yes — Rabin — Supreme Court” posters, perhaps referring to then-Assemblymember Samuel Rabin, who was elected to the bench in 1954 and served as a judge until 1981. At right, children scale and play around in a snow mound.

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