A young Rebecca Lepkoff, camera in hand, navigated the streets of the Lower East Side of New York City in the 1930s and 1940s capturing the lives and times of a vibrant, close-knit, and functional multiethnic community. Available now in a paperback edition, Life on the Lower East Side, the first monograph of Lepkoff's work, highlights the lost neighborhood between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, from the Bowery to the East River. With more than 170 beautifully reproduced duotone photographs, the book reveals the dynamic community of Italians, Irish, Jews, Greeks, Spaniards, Chinese, Puerto Ricans, and African Americans. Lepkoff's images uncover a forgotten time and place and reveal how the Lower East Side has both stayed the same and changed forever.
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Editorial Reviews
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...anyone, certainly anyone who has ever visited the constantly receding remnant of the old Lower East Side, will find this book affecting...a unique volume of art that breathes life from every page. -- Science & Society
Any art director from Hollywood could only pray for the detail and inspiration contained in Lepkoff's pictures. -- Washington Sunday Times, Dec. 31, 2006
She managed to cast a fresh eye on her familiar streets. Indeed, they became her muse. . . (Her) photography captured the ever-changing community in a way that paralleled the change in her life. -- The New York Times, October 22, 2006
The book is a virtual walking tour--a surprise waits as you round each corner . . . A student at the Photo League, Lepkoff's curious eye documented everything from dock workers at the South Street Seaport to endearing pictures of children playing. Lepkoff's New York moments are delightful revelations. -- B&W Magazine, October 2007
The book succeeds, in part, by telling a pictorial history of the Lower East Side and reminding viewers of the inevitable change that takes place in communities... Highly recommended. -- Choice, Feb. 2007
The living conditions were deplorable, but Lepkoff's subjects transmit a keen vitality as they go about their daily lives. -- Newsday, Dec. 10, 2006
if you look hard at Lepkoff's pictures... you can just about hear the snap of laundry on clotheslines, the laughter of girls skipping rope, and the shouts of fruit vendors rolling their pushcarts on the cobblestones. -- Columbia, Winter 2006-07
"photographer Rebeccca Lepkoff captured scenes from ... daily life in the 1930s and 1940s: butches and bakers at work; housewives hanging laundry; children playing in the streets." --Italian America, Summer, 2007
"These photos are a portrait of these immigrants strugggles." -- Tonia Steed --The Villager, November 1, 2006
"Pays homage to the multiethnic community on New Yorks Lower East Side." --Publishers Weekly, August 14, 2006
"The first monograph of photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, who cronicled life in this vibrant, multi-ethnic neighborhood before its buildings were razed in 1950 to make room for the Alfred E. Smith housing project." -- Catherine Pierre --John Hopkins Magazine, February, 2007
"Through their black-and-white photos, readers can visit an America that no longer exists, a Depression-era society of musical movies and Burma-Shave sign. Petrov and Ilf . . . captured scenes of everyday America and history in the making." --Library Journal, Oct. 2006 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Any art director from Hollywood could only pray for the detail and inspiration contained in Lepkoff's pictures. -- Washington Sunday Times, Dec. 31, 2006
She managed to cast a fresh eye on her familiar streets. Indeed, they became her muse. . . (Her) photography captured the ever-changing community in a way that paralleled the change in her life. -- The New York Times, October 22, 2006
The book is a virtual walking tour--a surprise waits as you round each corner . . . A student at the Photo League, Lepkoff's curious eye documented everything from dock workers at the South Street Seaport to endearing pictures of children playing. Lepkoff's New York moments are delightful revelations. -- B&W Magazine, October 2007
The book succeeds, in part, by telling a pictorial history of the Lower East Side and reminding viewers of the inevitable change that takes place in communities... Highly recommended. -- Choice, Feb. 2007
The living conditions were deplorable, but Lepkoff's subjects transmit a keen vitality as they go about their daily lives. -- Newsday, Dec. 10, 2006
if you look hard at Lepkoff's pictures... you can just about hear the snap of laundry on clotheslines, the laughter of girls skipping rope, and the shouts of fruit vendors rolling their pushcarts on the cobblestones. -- Columbia, Winter 2006-07
"photographer Rebeccca Lepkoff captured scenes from ... daily life in the 1930s and 1940s: butches and bakers at work; housewives hanging laundry; children playing in the streets." --Italian America, Summer, 2007
"These photos are a portrait of these immigrants strugggles." -- Tonia Steed --The Villager, November 1, 2006
"Pays homage to the multiethnic community on New Yorks Lower East Side." --Publishers Weekly, August 14, 2006
"The first monograph of photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, who cronicled life in this vibrant, multi-ethnic neighborhood before its buildings were razed in 1950 to make room for the Alfred E. Smith housing project." -- Catherine Pierre --John Hopkins Magazine, February, 2007
"Through their black-and-white photos, readers can visit an America that no longer exists, a Depression-era society of musical movies and Burma-Shave sign. Petrov and Ilf . . . captured scenes of everyday America and history in the making." --Library Journal, Oct. 2006 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Lower East Side Lives,
By Farm Mom (Hydes, MD) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950 (Hardcover)
This is a beautiful book. The photographs are honest and compelling, and the writing is wonderful. My 13-year-old daughter and I especially loved reading about Peter Dans' childhood in a cold-water flat. I grew up loving the "All-of-a-Kind" books by Sydney Taylor, and in some ways, this reminded me of those beloved stories. Peter Dans is a sensitive writer who, like Sydney Taylor, is able to make you feel as if you're there, and care about the people -- in this case, himself as a young boy and his remarkable family, particularly his grandmother. I feel the loss of this neighborhood even though I've never been there. In these pages, with both authors' wonderful writing and the rich photography, the Lower East Side lives again, in all its vitality. The only thing I would change is to make the text type darker, so it would be easier on the eyes.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950,
By Tamara "historical photography enthusiast" (California) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950 (Hardcover)
This is a book of photographs one feels truthfully captures the atmosphere, the way of life, experienced by the people living on the Lower East Side during this period of time. The text is a bit difficult to read as it is not a very dark print but all in all the book is worthwhile for just the photographs alone.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
great photographs-disappointed in organization,
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This review is from: Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950 (Hardcover)
The publishing of Lepkoff's beautiful photgraphs was long overdue and Peter Dans' parallel touching story gave them added life and unique history. As a student of Lower East Side History and as someone who grew up in Knickerbocker Village, I would have loved to find out their exact location, in the manner of Abbott's great work. The photos are only identified by grouping them in broad areas at the beginning of loosely organized chapters. I can take educated guesses on several of them, but that's all. Perhaps Lepkoff's notes were missing? I'm sure a gathering of some old-timers could have pin-pointed them. Nevertheless, I'm contacting my childhood friends to make sure they get a copy.
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Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs):
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New York, Lower East Side, Photo League, Cherry Street, Rebecca Lepkoff, South Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Educational Alliance, Knickerbocker Village, Uncle Pete, East River, Uncle Johnny, Water Street, Fulton Street, Madison Street, Puerto Rican, Staten Island, Walter Rosenblum New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
New York, Lower East Side, Photo League, Cherry Street, Rebecca Lepkoff, South Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Educational Alliance, Knickerbocker Village, Uncle Pete, East River, Uncle Johnny, Water Street, Fulton Street, Madison Street, Puerto Rican, Staten Island, Walter Rosenblum New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 16
books:
See all 16 books this book cites
- Here is New York by E.B. White on page 18, page 202, and page 205
- The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead on page 16, and page 205
- The East River (Images of America) by The Greater Astoria Historical Society on page 46
- The Lower East Side (New York City) by Ronald Sanders on page 205
- Fred Astaire by Benny Green on page 29
See all 16 books this book cites
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