![\"Children](\"https:\/\/ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/arthurleipziglookingdownstreetchalkgames.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBut it was his sensitive, evocative images of children at play on New York City streets that first won him acclaim. <\/p>\n
And the idea of capturing these ordinary kids engrossed in stickball, hopscotch, and other popular Gotham street games in the middle decades of the 20th century came not from a teacher or a trend but from a painting by a Flemish Renaissance master.<\/p>\n
That painting is \u201cChildren\u2019s Games,\u201d by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (above). Dating back to 1560, it\u2019s a richly detailed, bird\u2019s-eye depiction of more than 230 children playing 83 different games<\/a> in a town square, from hoops to blind man\u2019s bluff to leapfrog. <\/p>\n Leipzig spoke out about the effect Bruegel\u2019s painting had on him shortly after he began documenting New York\u2019s children\u2019s games in the 1940s. At the time, he was a member of the Photo League<\/a>, a cooperative of socially conscious photographers who chronicled the rougher edges of the Depression-era city. <\/p>\n \u201cMarching boys,\u201d 1943<\/p>\n \u201cWhen photographer Arthur Leipzig recently saw a picture of Pieter Bruegel the Elder\u2019s famous painting \u2018Children\u2019s Games,\u2019 he was struck by the resemblance of games of nearly 400 years ago to those one sees today,\u201d according to the New York Times<\/a>. <\/p>\n The many similarities he noticed by watching children jump, run, swim, and hop from his own window proved \u201cthat boys and girls play in New York in 1950 about the same way they did in Flanders in 1560,\u201d continued the Times.<\/p>\n \u201cDivers, East River,\u201d 1948<\/p>\n From the 1940s to the 1960s, Leipzig documented the children\u2019s games he observed, as well as the dirt lots and asphalt surfaces that inventive city kids turned into playgrounds, ball fields, and game boards. <\/p>\n Like the cheeky youngsters in Bruegel\u2019s painting, these New York children didn\u2019t have specially made toys. Games could be played with chalk, sticks, hoops, or a box fashioned into a cart\u2014most of which could be found discarded on the streets.<\/p>\n \u201cKing of the Hill,\u201d 1943<\/p>\n Some of Leipzig\u2019s photos share a similar vantage point with Bruegel. The first image in this post, \u201cChalk Games,\u201d features a bird\u2019s-eye view likely from the first or second-floor balcony<\/a>, window, or fire escape of a building on Prospect Place in Brooklyn. <\/p>\n Yet Leipzig didn\u2019t set out to copy Bruegel\u2019s painting but take inspiration from it. He channeled its imagination and spirit from a dirt town square in Flanders to the black and white of New York\u2019s midcentury cityscape. <\/p>\n \u201cJohnny on the Pony,\u201d 1943<\/p>\n Leipzig (below right photo) didn\u2019t limit his work to children. His photos told the stories of a window washer on a skyscraper, lone pedestrians making their way<\/a> under traffic lights in a storm, the romance and thrills found at Coney Island, and the joy of VE Day in Times Square.<\/p>\n He died in 2014 at age 96, and his children\u2019s photos might be his best-known legacy, displaying a sensitivity to the rhythm and energy of New York\u2019s humanity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe city was my home,\u201d Leipzig said, per a quote from the Peter Fetterman Gallery<\/a>. \u201cAs I look back at the work I did during that period, I realize that I was a witness to a time that no longer exists, a more innocent time.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWhile I know that the city has changed, that the streets are dirtier and meaner, the energy that I love is still there,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cRed Rover,\u201d 1943<\/p>\n \u201cNo matter where I go, I keep coming back to photography New York. Of course the \u2018good old days\u2019 were not all sweetness and light. There was poverty, racism, corruption, and violence in those days too, but somehow we believed in the possible. We believed in hope.\u201d<\/p>\n [Top image: Jackson Fine Art<\/a>; second image: Kunst Historisches Museum<\/a>; third image: Jackson Fine Art<\/a>; fourth image: George Adams Gallery<\/a>; fifth image: Howard Greenberg Gallery<\/a>; sixth and eighth images: Brooklyn Museum<\/a>; seventh image: New York Times]<\/p>\n Tags: Arthur Leipzig Children’s Games<\/a>, Arthur Leipzig New York City<\/a>, Arthur Leipzig Pieter Bruegel the Elder<\/a>, Arthur Leipzig street photographer NYC<\/a>, Kids in NYC playing in streets photos<\/a>, New York Photo League 1940s<\/a>, Photos of 1940s New York City<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThis entry was posted on September 14, 2026 at 1:45 am and is filed under art<\/a>, Brooklyn<\/a>.\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0<\/a> feed.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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