‘If you see this picture once, you never forget it.’ – CHRISTINE ROUSSEL, ROCKEFELLER CENTER HISTORIAN.
It’s the most perilous yet playful lunch break
ever captured: 11 men casually eating, chatting and sneaking a smoke as if they
weren’t 840 feet above Manhattan with nothing but a thin beam keeping them
aloft. That comfort is real; the men are among the construction workers who
helped build Rockefeller Center.
But the picture, taken on the 69th floor of the
flagship RCA Building (now the GE Building), was staged as part of a
promotional campaign for the massive skyscraper complex. While the photographer
and the identities of most of the subjects remain a mystery—the photographers
Charles C. Ebbets, Thomas Kelley and William Leftwich were all present that
day, and it’s not known which one took it—there isn’t an iron worker in New
York City who doesn’t see the picture as a badge of their bold tribe. In that
way they are not alone.
By thumbing its no seat both danger and the
Depression, Lunch Atop a Skyscraper came to symbolize American resilience and
ambition at a time when both were desperately needed. It has since become an
iconic emblem of the city in which it was taken, affirming the romantic belief
that New York is a place unafraid to tackle projects that would cow less brazen
cities.
And like all symbols in a city built on hustle,
Lunch A top a Skyscraper has spawned its own economy. It is the Corbis's photo
agency’s most reproduced image. And good luck walking through Times Square
without someone hawking it on a mug, magnet or T-shirt.