Lunch atop a Skyscraper: A Real Photo, a Staged Moment

The photograph is real in the sense that matters least and staged in the sense that matters most. The eleven men were genuine construction workers, high above Manhattan on a steel beam. But the lunch was arranged for the cameras as a publicity exercise. It was taken on 20 September 1932 on the RCA Building, now 30 Rockefeller Plaza, during construction of Rockefeller Center.

This article separates what the records and historians support from what has been inferred or claimed later. Treating a famous image this way follows the method in our checklist for evaluating a claim, and it shows how much of this picture's story is still uncertain.

The short answer: real men, real building, staged moment

The image shows eleven ironworkers sitting on a steel beam, eating lunch with the city far below. It first ran in the New York Herald Tribune on 2 October 1932 under the title Builders of The City Enjoy Luncheon. It was a publicity photograph, arranged to promote the project rather than a chance snapshot of a break.

The height is given differently. Figures of 800, 840 and 850 feet (about 260 metres) all appear, so it is safest to say the men were several hundred feet up rather than treat one number as settled.

So the claim splits in two. The men were real workers on a real building. The staging is well documented, and that is where the photograph's reputation as a spontaneous moment falls apart. Staged photographs have a long history, from the Cottingley Fairies to this image.

How the publicity shoot was arranged

Merle Crowell, Rockefeller Center's director of public relations, is reported to have organised the shoot to promote the nearly complete building. He is said to have provided lunchboxes and sent a group of photographers up onto the steel. The image has been described as a publicity tool that helped promote John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s vision for the site during the Great Depression.

The famous frame was not the only one made that day. Other staged pictures show an ironworker holding an American flag as if planted on the distant Empire State Building, a worker riding a block of stone as it was hoisted, men hamming it up, and men pretending to nap on the beam. Seen together, they read as a set of deliberate scenes.

A common muddle is worth clearing up. The Empire State Building appears only as a background element in one staged shot. The main image was taken on the RCA Building, not on top of the Empire State Building. That confusion is why the photograph is often misattributed to Lewis Hine.

If you want to test your eye on famous pictures, try Real or Rigged? on this site.

Who pressed the shutter? The open question

At least three photographers were on site that September day: Charles C. Ebbets, Thomas Kelley and William Leftwich. Ebbets had been appointed photographic director of Rockefeller Center in 1932, and an invoice on his letterhead billed Rockefeller Center directly that autumn, which suggests he was closely tied to the project. Leftwich ran his own agency across from the construction site.

The negative later passed into the Bettmann Archive, where the picture was listed without a credit. In 1998 Tami Ebbets Hahn thought it might be her father's work. In 2003 an investigation turned up a newspaper credit to Hamilton Wright, but Wright's family did not recognise the photo. Attribution drifts easily once a picture is separated from its paperwork.

Corbis later acknowledged Ebbets's authorship, yet some accounts still call the photographer unknown, and the image has again been listed without credit. Ebbets is the leading candidate, but the question is not settled.

Who the men were, and what is still unconfirmed

Two of the eleven are confirmed. Rockefeller Center archivist Christine Roussel has identified Joseph Eckner, third from the left, and Joe Curtis, third from the right. The 2012 documentary Men at Lunch identified the same two by comparing other pictures taken that day.

Since 2010 two Irish brothers, Seán and Éamonn Ó Cualáín, have investigated the men's identities, starting from a copy of the photo hanging in a pub in Ireland. Claims have been made about other men, including Gustáv Popovič and Peter Rice, but these remain claims rather than confirmed identities.

The men are generally described as immigrant ironworkers. Nationalities beyond that are not firmly established.

Inferences that go beyond the evidence

Some widely repeated details are reasoning rather than record. Christine Roussel suggests the workers played along, probably because they were being paid. It is plausible, but it is not a documented fact.

The same applies to safety. The history of the photo says there was probably a floor or other structure just out of frame, so the men were likely in less danger than the picture suggests. That is a sensible reading, not something confirmed. No overall head count for the people on site that day is established, so no number should be quoted.

A useful habit is to sort each statement into three piles: what the archive shows, what a historian has confirmed, and what is simply reasoning. The same principle runs through our guide to checking old photos, which traces a picture's origin before judging its content.

Why the image still matters

The photograph has been reused again and again. Time included it in its 2016 list of the 100 most influential images, and a composite based on it appeared on the magazine's 2025 Person of the Year cover.

In December 2023 Rockefeller Center opened Top of the Rock: The Beam, a recreated beam on the 69th floor where visitors sit strapped in. Cameras are not allowed. Rockefeller Center's EB Kelly said the beam was meant to let people feel directly connected to the famous photo.

That closes the loop. A publicity shot made to sell a building is now remembered as a symbol of a city and its workers. An image can be staged and still tell us something true about its time.