Photo credit: Leo Baeck Institute http://www.lbi.org/
As the director of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association of Washington Heights and Inwood, Hans Epstein (fourth from right at rear) wanted the Y, on Vermilyea Avenue in Inwood, to be a safe space. He created after school programs for neighborhood children as a way to avoid the “toughs” that made this part of Manhattan a gang hotbed in the late 1950s. This photo, taken at the Y in that era, gives a glimpse of what the club’s membership looked like in those days.
By Jon Campbell