June 26, 1886
Jamie Swan jumps off a short stone wall at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Wallace G. Levison was a chemist, inventor, and lecturer who founded the Departments of Mineralogy and Astronomy at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in the latter half of the 19th century.
He was also an avid photographer, using the new technology both as a scientific tool and a recreational activity.
As the dawn of the 20th century approached, newer, more sensitive film emulsions were developed that allowed pictures to be taken with faster and faster shutter speeds.
Levison’s photographs, snapped amid the hustling crowds of Manhattan and the frolicking bathers of Coney Island, display an obsession with motion and a delight with freezing actions that could previously only be recorded as a blur.
Nov. 6, 1884
Crowds of men outside the New York Tribune building in lower Manhattan.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
1886
Uniformed officers in riding boots walk down a street.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Oct. 14, 1886
Mr. Stokes jumps off a wall in Fort Greene Park.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
May 10, 1886
Nathan Abbott and a young girl walk through Copps Hill Cemetery.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
May 22, 1886
Girls jump off a stone wall in Fort Greene.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
June 1, 1891
An elephant from the Barnes Circus walks down Atlantic Street in Brooklyn.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
May 22, 1886
Isabel Harter rides a tricycle while her sister Nellie rolls a hoop in Fort Greene.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
May 28, 1886
J.M. Cornell jumps in the backyard at 314 Livingston Street.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
May 28, 1886
J.M. Cornell jumps in the backyard at 314 Livingston Street.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
June 19, 1886
Zelma Levison jumps in the backyard of her home at 314 Livingston Street.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
June 20, 1886
Mildred Grimwood jumps in the backyard at 314 Livingston Street as brother Victor Grimwood and pal Zelma Levison look on.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
June 27, 1886
Five men compete in a walking race.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
June 11, 1886
Ethel Merritt jumps in the air at Coney Island.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
July 20, 1886
Zelma Levison and her aunt Jo Grimwood throw a ball back and forth on a lawn in Prospect Park.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Aug. 23, 1886
A group of young male bathers walk single file along the beach.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Aug. 24, 1886
An actor talks with bathers on the beach.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Dec. 9, 1886
H.B. Leckler's dog Mace poses atop a chair in Fort Greene.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
May 15, 1887
Edith Poey jumps off a wooden pole onto the sand at Coney Island.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
June 24, 1887
Edgar J. Taylor jumps off a barrel.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
July 24, 1888
Maggie Ward stands on the end of a diving board at Coney Island.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
1888
Miss Brown holds a cob of maize for a squirrel to eat.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
c. 1890
A woman swings on a rope at Coney Island.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Sept. 8, 1897
A man in a barrel does a push up at the beach.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
April 15, 1900
Dr. Ernest Palmer and wife join hands to make a bar so that their dog can jump over it.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Aug. 26, 1904
Acrobats perform a balancing act on the backs of a pair of horses as crowds watch at Coney Island's Dreamland.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Sept. 8, 1897
A woman swims at the beach.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Sept. 8, 1897
Gertrude Hubbell, Ruth Peters, and Mildred Grimwood play near the water at Arverne, Queens.
Image: Wallace G. Levison/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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