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Helen Levitt, was an American photographer (from Brooklyn), specializing primarily in street snapshots. She is well-known for her images of children, especially those from poor urban American centres.

Her 1948 film, appropriately titled In The Streets, was shot in New York’s Harlem district. She was assisted by novelist and critic James Agee and photographer Janice Loeb, and using 18mm hidden cameras documented the inhabitants of Harlem outside of their homes. Some images are playful, others unfortunate. 

The film is silent, but begins with the following text: 

“The streets of the poor quarters of great cities are, above all, a theater and a battleground. There, unaware and unnoticed, every human being is a poet, a masker, a warrior, a dancer; and in his innocent artistry he projects, against the turmoil of the street, an image of human existence. The attempt in this film is to capture this image.”

Whether or not I agree with her categorization, the film is at least interesting because it shows what cats looked like in 1948 (oh, also that whole it being a curious time capsule thing). 

(Source: Lapham’s Quarterly)

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Jessica Carroll is the Toronto Standard’s editorial assistant. Follow her on Twitter at @jssckr.

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