City - New York, NY - Lunch atop a Skyscraper 1932 - Side by Side

by Mike Savad

Title

City - New York, NY - Lunch atop a Skyscraper 1932 - Side by Side

Artist

Mike Savad

Medium

Photograph - Colorized Photo

Description

Hand colored photo from 1932
Original title: Lunch atop a skyscraper
Photographer: Unknown
Location: 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY

Lunch Atop a Skyscraper is one of the most iconic photographs in American history , a hauntingly casual glimpse into the lives of Great Depression–era ironworkers that continues to stir awe nearly a century later. Taken on September 20, 1932, the black-and-white image shows eleven construction workers perched on a steel beam, eating lunch, smoking, and chatting, with no safety harnesses, 850 feet above Manhattan. Below them sprawls a half-built New York City, its grid-like streets and low-rise buildings offering a stark contrast to their surreal vantage point.

The men were working on the RCA Building, now known as 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the centerpiece of the ambitious Rockefeller Center project. The image wasn't taken spontaneously , it was a publicity stunt organized by Rockefeller Center's PR team to promote their new skyscraper and lift the national mood during the darkest years of the Great Depression. Though the workers were real, mostly immigrant ironworkers, Irish, Italian, Scandinavian, and Native American, the scene was carefully posed to capture the daring grit of the American worker.

The photographer's identity remains uncertain. The image is most often credited to Charles C. Ebbets, though others such as Thomas Kelley and William Leftwich were also on-site that day, and no official credit has been confirmed. The original negative is housed in the Bettmann Archive, part of Getty Images.

While the photo suggests the men are floating in open air with nothing beneath them, it's not quite as death-defying as it looks. There were floors below the beam, though a fall would still have been extremely dangerous, certainly enough to maim or kill. Still, the framing of the shot and the casual postures of the workers, legs dangling over the abyss, one man even holding a bottle, created the lasting illusion of impossible fearlessness.

Even the photographer wasn't exactly safe, he is believed to have taken the photo while straddling a steel beam himself, wearing wingtip dress shoes.

The men in the photo were mostly anonymous for decades, but some identities have gradually come to light. Joseph Eckner and Joe Curtis were confirmed via other photos taken that same day, and Gustáv (Gusti) Popovic, the man on the far right with the bottle, was identified after the photo was found among his belongings, inscribed with a message to his wife: “Don't you worry, my dear Mariska, as you can see I'm still with bottle.” A 2012 documentary, Men at Lunch, delved into these stories, uncovering immigrant roots and personal histories that deepened the photo's meaning.

What makes the image so enduring is the collision of mundane and monumental: lunch, an everyday ritual, suspended in a setting that seems almost otherworldly. As Ken Johnston, then manager of Corbis' historic photo collection, put it: "There's the incongruity between the action, lunch, and the place, 800 feet in the air... You get a strong sense of their characters through their expressions, clothes, and poses.”

Beyond the danger, beyond the stunt, the photo became a symbol of resilience, working-class pride, and the immigrant labor that built America's cities. It's been endlessly replicated and reimagined, from posters and murals to movie parodies, and in 2016, TIME Magazine included it in its list of the 100 most influential photographs of all time.

Whether seen as an authentic slice of life or a carefully crafted myth, Lunch Atop a Skyscraper remains an indelible image of American courage and contradiction, staged but real, suspended yet grounded, ordinary and yet unforgettable.

Color notes:
I did my best to blend the figures into the scene naturally, as there's been a lot of online speculation suggesting they look fake or edited in. In truth, the image is more about forced perspective than digital manipulation. The photographer had to find a way to make the workers stand out against the complex skyline, otherwise, they would have visually blended into the background. I discovered this myself when I began colorizing the image: at thumbnail size, the figures almost disappeared into the haze.
To fix that, I subtly outlined the workers and adjusted the lighting, darkening the bottom portion and brightening the top, to give the composition more contrast and ensure the men remained the focal point.

For the building colors below, I aimed for accuracy. I cross-referenced each structure with satellite imagery and overhead maps, matching their real-world tones as closely as possible. The background buildings are filled with more generalized colors, since much of the distant detail was lost in the hazy, partly cloudy conditions of the original photo.

Interestingly, most of the buildings seen in the background still exist today, though they, re now dwarfed or hidden by modern towers. They, ve been combined into larger developments, making them appear much smaller than they once did. Thankfully, one distinct building with a dome served as a reliable anchor point, helping me stay consistently aligned every time I returned to the piece.

Uploaded

May 1st, 2025

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