Untitled, 1940

Helen Levitt’s candid, diaristic
street photography captures both the fantasies and realities of children living
in working-class New York. The hard-boiled social experiences of Spanish Harlem
(as it was then known) and the Lower East Side coexist in the frame with children’s
imaginative world of play. The built environment is decrepit, but the street is
nonetheless a humming, vibrant theater in which kids invent games and the
sidewalk is a canvas for chalk pictures. By her own account, Levitt was not
drawn to children because of any particular affection for them, rather simply
because they were ready subjects, always present on the street. She remained inconspicuous
by outfitting her camera with a right-angle periscopic attachment: she appeared
to be photographing what was in front of her, but was actually photographing
what was beside her.