Helen Levitt's earliest pictures are a unique and irreplaceable look at street life in New York City from the mid-1930s to the end of the 1940s. There are children at play, lovers flirting, husbands and wives, young mothers with their babies, women gossiping, and lonely old men. A majority of these photographs have never been published. Other pictures included in this book are now world-famous, now part of the standard history of photography. Together they provide a record of New York not seen since Levitt's pioneering solo show at The Museum of Modern Art in 1943.

Levitt's photographs are in some of the best photography collections in America, including: The Met, MoMA, The Smithsonian, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Art Institute of Chicago. "Levitt’s pictures capture the experience of old world families embarking on their new lives in the streets of New York. The book’s enormous sampling of her work—including many previously unpublished photographs—depicts children at play, lovers entwined, old men captured in moments of yearning, and young mothers." —Culture Trip

AS SEEN IN: L'oeil de la Photographie, The Cut, PDN Photo of the Day