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