![]() ![]() It was the lunch photo that was published in the New York Herald Tribune that October, seven months before the building would open.Īt the time, steel was an integral part of the American Dream. ![]() Other photos taken that day show the workers playing football, holding up American flags or pretending to sleep on the steel beam. But "the funniest part about the photographs," she said, "were they were done for publicity." "You see the picture once, you never forget it," Rockefeller Center archivist Christine Roussel told Time magazine. Intrepid steel workers eat lunch atop the 70 story RCA building in Rockefeller Centre in New York in 1932. Some historians believe there was a sturdy level of the structure, then called the RCA building, just below the frame. But rather than capture them in the midst of their lunch break, the photographer posed them on the beam for multiple takes - images that were intended as advertising for the new building. They did build the structure that is now the 22nd tallest building in New York City and home to NBC studios. The men in the picture were real ironworkers. Photo buffs know the truth behind the classic photo: It was staged. And every Labor Day, it is shared across social media, in tribute to those whose perspiration and determination built this country. Construction workers frequently re-create the 87-year-old photo. It still hangs in pubs, classrooms and union offices across the nation. ![]() The resulting photograph became one of the most iconic images in the world, an embodiment of the spirit of the American worker. They appeared to be completely unfazed by the location of this break: a narrow steel beam jutting out into the sky, hundreds of feet above the pavement.Īs one coveralled man helped another light his smoke, someone snapped a picture. The ironworkers constructing its 70 floors were taking a break, sharing boxed lunches and cigarettes. But on West 49th Street, a pillar of hope was under construction: the art deco skyscraper that would come to be known as 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Unemployment and uncertainty could be felt throughout the city and the entire country. It was September of 1932, as the Great Depression was reaching its height. Eleven pairs of loafers were dangling over the New York City skyline. ![]()
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