Her friends recall her as a talented photographer and clothing designer as well as a loyal community member and housing activist.
With city budget cuts preventing the usual maintenance of Tompkins Square Park this past year, Rand helped organized volunteer days to pick up trash and weed and rake parts of the gardens.
In March 2015, she started the Sidewalks of New York Facebook group, which attracted nearly 4,600 members who shared "memories of New York, past and present."
Her decades-long residency dating to the early 1970s here included a friendship with Allen Ginsberg ... and allowed her to document the early days of punk. (Her photo of Harley Flanagan graces the cover of the Stimulators' first single from 1980, "Loud Fast Rules!")
Rand was an animal lover and adored her dog Leeluu and cat Annie.
She will be interred at a private graveside service this afternoon at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn. Rand's friends are planning a celebration of her life in the Tompkins Square Park dog run on June 10 from 4-7 p.m.
Thank you to Steven for the reporting on this post.