I get the feeling that the kid holding up the building is Tom Hagen to our fancy-pants shooter's Don Michael Corleone - protecting his interests from local cops, snoopy social reforming photographers, and kids who protest too much when a set of loaders gets swapped into the game.

I don't see any money anywhere, on the ground or in their hands. Was it just for fun? Also, I'd love to go back in time and give the poor kid with the bandaged toes a pair of shoes.

As noted by Mr Mel, in ten years probably all of these boys would be doughboys and knowing how to shoot craps would be a useful skill in the barracks or in the trenches or below decks. One could pass the time and perhaps pick up a little cash for one's next leave. "Come on, little Joe from Kokomo".

That chalked hopscotch layout -- very convenient if the local flatfoot strolls around the corner.

[Maybe what our parents said was true -- hopscotch leads to craps! - Dave]

The boy on the right is sitting on a coal chute. The kid looking straight into the camera is one tough cookie!

Look at the look on that kid's face. He's not Fredo for sure.

I'm guessing this game was Socks vs. Skins.

This is a rough looking crew . The young man leaning against the building is one shifty looking guy. The shooter and the kid sitting on the window ledge are shoeless and something tells me that they didn't lose their footwear shooting craps. The oddity is the boy sitting on the sidewalk. He appears to be cleaner, is wearing a bow-tie and a reasonably new pair of boots. In their future is a World War and the Great Depression. It would be interesting to find out what happened to them.

Those were the good old days when kids could take a break from their OSHA-nightmare work environments and gamble barefoot in the streets, smoking and cussing like sailors.

On the plus side, at least they weren't fat.