Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) one who works on the street, on foot, as a tout etc.

1930

M. West Babe Gordon (1934) 29: They worked the streets till they made enough for a few drinks and then they parked around Fifth Avenue creep joints, waiting for downtown explorers that needed a ‘steer’ to dope or wanted to be led to a ‘circus’. [...] There was more money in this racket and it was easier. It took energy to be a leg worker, and they were wasted skeletons.