He and his brother, Eamonn, the film’s producer, were in a pub in Galway, when they noticed a copy of the photograph hanging in a corner. “It was a happy accident,” says Ó Cualáin. Ó Cualáin did not plan to tell the story of the photograph, but that’s exactly what he has done in his latest documentary, Men at Lunch, which debuted earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival. I think that is why the photograph works.” “We can all place ourselves on that beam.

Who was the photographer? And who are the men? The portrait has become an icon of 20th century American photography.įor the Irish filmmaker Seán Ó Cualáin, the mystery surrounding the photograph is a large part of its appeal. My brother had a poster in his childhood bedroom with actors, such as Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio, photoshopped in place of the steelworkers. You’ve seen the photograph before-and probably some of the playful parodies it has spawned too. But, most famously, all 11 ate lunch on a steel beam, their feet dangling 850 feet above the city’s streets. Some of the tradesmen tossed a football a few pretended to nap. On this particular day, though, they humored a photographer, who was drumming up excitement about the project’s near completion. The men were accustomed to walking along the girders of the RCA building (now called the GE building) they were constructing in Rockefeller Center. Lunch atop a Skyscraper - a group of workers sharing a cigarette, smiling, talking, and having lunch with a backdrop of the city hundreds of feet below - is an image one can never forget.On September 20, 1932, high above 41st Street in Manhattan, 11 ironworkers took part in a daring publicity stunt. The magic of the photo is its unique contrast of everyday activity and unimaginable danger. It is among the 100 most influential photographs in the world, according to the Time Magazine. Before being appointed the Photographic Director for the Rockefeller Center’s development, he tried his hand at being a pilot, wing-walker, auto racer, wrestler, actor, and a stuntman.Īll of these photos are nothing less than jaw-dropping, but it’s the Lunch photo specifically that became one of the most recognizable pieces of photography ever taken. Ebbets in particular was one dapper, elegant daredevil of the death-defying field of skyscraper photography. In reality, these fearless photographers scaled the same heights and stood on the same narrow beams as the workers in order to get the perfect shot. Ebbets’ family found the negative for the photo and produced verified written records of Ebbets’ authorship, the photo remains attributed to “unknown.”Įxamining these photos, most people don’t think of the photographers who took them. Since photographers often did not receive credit for their work until the 1950s, it wasn’t clear which one of them actually took the photo. Ebbets, William Leftwich, and Thomas Kelley. Three photographers were hired for the job: Charles C. Other photos show the workers playing football, holding up American flags, or pretending to sleep on the steel beam. The iconic image was not the only one taken that day. In order to pose for the photo they had to perform a routine act of the construction process: walk a six inch wide beam over 800 feet in the air without any form of protection. Even though the Lunch atop a Skyscraper photo was staged, the people in the image are actual workers. What better way to attract attention than to create visuals of workers casually disregarding mortal danger at the dizzying heights of newly-built skyscrapers? The photoshoot took place on Sand the lunch photo was published in the New York Herald Tribune in October, several months before the opening of the RCA building. The photo was staged as a part of publicity campaign promoting the newly constructed Rockefeller Center. The photo is mesmerizing, as it plays on the contrast between the ease in the men’s demeanors and the danger of sitting on a narrow beam 69 floors in the air. The iconic photo depicting 11 workers casually eating their lunch 840 feet above ground was staged as a promotion for the newly constructed Rockefeller Center.

Workers eating lunch on beam