Lunch Atop a Skyscraper
The image has become an icon of 20th-century photography, and has been long interpreted as an embodiment of the great American immigration story – a story that surely bears timely retelling.
Welcome to a fresh week of REMORANDOM. For today’s post, and in “celebration” of Kim Kardashian’s new Skims range of faux pubic hair thongs, I was momentarily tempted to resend an earlier post about Merkins – BUT I resisted. Lucky you. I did however remove the paywall, so if you’re tempted, you can read about merkins HERE.
Remo
It’s very likely you’ve seen this image, and seeing it once is remembering it forever.
Lunch Atop a Skyscraper is a black-and-white photograph, taken on 20 September 1932, of 11 iron workers sitting on a steel beam and eating lunch on the 69th floor of the RCA Building, 260 metres (850 feet) above the ground during the construction of Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. It was arrange as a publicity stunt, part of a campaign promoting the skyscraper.
The image has become an icon of 20th-century photography, and has been long interpreted as an embodiment of the great American immigration story of the late 19th and early 20th centuries – and a tribute to those courageous men from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, etc. who effectively built New York.
The pay was decent for an iron worker in those hard-to-find-work Depression years: US$1.50 per hour (equivalent to US$33 in 2025), but the downside requirement was a willingness to die a grisly death. [Ed: Always good to read the fine print.] Two percent of iron workers would perish in workplace accidents every year, and a further 2% would suffer a permanent disability. No wonder that the Iron Workers Local 361 trade union motto was “We do not die; we are killed.” [Ed: Glad not to be at that brainstorming session.]
The identity of the photographer remains unclear. Evidence emerged indicating it may have been taken by Charles C. Ebbets, but it was later found that two other photographers had been present and shooting on that day as well: Thomas Kelly and William Leftwich – both also dare devils, judging from the images.
As regards the 11 iron workers, many claims have been made regarding their identities, but only a few have been definitively established.
The 2012 documentary Men at Lunch by the Irish filmmaker Seán Ó Cualáin, confirms the identities of two of the men: Joseph Eckner, third from the left, and Joe Curtis, third from the right, by cross-referencing with other pictures taken the same day, in which they were named on the back of the prints. The film also explored the possibility that the man on the far left was Matty O’Shaugnessy and the man on the far right holding the bottle was his cousin Sonny Glynn, also from Shanaglish in County Galway. Another source, however, identified the man on the far right as being a Slovak worker Gustáv (Gusti) Popovič. The photograph was apparently found in his estate, with the note “Don’t you worry, my dear Mariška, as you can see I’m still with bottle.” written on the back. Truth-telling or a boast?
We’ll never really be sure who these men were – and it actually doesn’t matter. They represent something more significant than themselves. Time magazine included the image in its 2016 list of the 100 most influential. Discussing the significance of the image in 2012, Ken Johnston, the Historical Director of Photography at Corbis Images said:
“There’s the incongruity between the action – lunch – and the place – 800 feet in the air – and that these guys are so casual about it. It’s visceral: I’ve had people tell me they have trouble looking at it out of fear of heights. And these men – you feel you get a very strong sense of their characters through their expressions, clothes and poses.”
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