Photos: Old Rio looked so cool it hurts

Hipsters, beaches, and Carnival 63 years before the Olympics came to town

Woman at a 1953 Carnival party in Rio de Janeiro.

In the late 1940s and early 50s, the American photographer Earl Leaf traveled to Brazil where he made a set of images about the city’s flamboyant night life, carnival parties and emerging cosmopolitanism. Leaf — himself an eccentric and enigmatic character — had previously reported from China’s Communist Revolution, served in the OSS during World War II and went on to become a notable celebrity photographer and gossip columnist in Hollywood.

His pictures from Rio are notable for a number of reasons, not least for their depiction of privilege in proximity to the city’s working class residents. Leaf also captured the energy of a multiracial metropolis emerging from its colonial past at a time of intense urban growth. Between 1940 and 1960 Rio’s population nearly doubled. At the time these photographs were made, electric-powered streetcars and internal migration were fueling suburban expansion and the city’s first skyscrapers had begun popping up in the Centro district.

All photos by Earl Leaf via Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Overlooking Rio’s beach and coastline in 1950.

Carnival parade, 1953.

Carnival revelers at a party in 1953.

1: Roadway off Copacabana beach, 1950. 2: US officials visit the Galeão International Airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1947.

1: A woman poses with her souvenirs for sale in 1950. 2: Office buildings in downtown Rio, 1950.

Parade revelers in costume for Carnival, 1953.

A man gets his shoes shined as he talks to two women in a open air cafe in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, in 1950.

Couple at a bar, 1950.

An employee at the restaurant Casablanca poses in his uniform in 1950.

Woman at a bar, 1950.

1: Two men in costume for the Carnival parade in 1953. 2: Rio’s streetcars were full of passengers in 1950.

The growing city as seen from above, Rio de Janeiro, 1950.

Workers and patrons at a coffee bar in 1950.