all of this is happening at some unthinkable height above the streets of New York. Notice the delicate ease with which he’s holding that enormous camera. Ebbets with his dapper shoes and his Gene Kelly stance. They are now stored in a refrigerated cave in western Pennsylvania, encased in cool limestone bedrock to prevent it from rotting and decaying any further. It is one of the most iconic pictures in history - but the story behind it is not so well known. The children of Ebbets eventually prove that their father was the artist by presenting original invoices billing for his work done at the Rockefeller Centre, copies of the newspaper article found in his personal scrapbook and his original glass negatives that day on the beam adjacent to the 11 workmen (photo below). All I can think about in the original picture is the wind taking a hat off one of their heads, and him swiping at it to grab it, and both he and the hat going off the back side of the steel beam. These workers were constructing 70 floors of the skyscraper that day, sharing food and cigarettes. This was a beacon of hope during the height of the Great Depression at the time. What these men were sitting on would become known as 30 Rockefeller Plaza. However, ever since “Lunch atop Skyscraper” was ‘rediscovered’ in the last two decades and began to circulate worldwide, no other photographer nor any photographer’s estate has ever claimed authorship of it. Chicago local 1 Iron Workers remake the iconic Lunch atop a skyscraper photo that was originally captured. The picture shows 11 men eating lunch while atop a skyscraper in 1932. So why did it take so long for him to be credited for it? It has been claimed that multiple photographers collaborated on the shoot, which is likely true because, we do see several photographs of Charles himself taken that day by at least one other photographer. More often than not, the images they took were filed away, uncredited in the archives. They billed their employer for the work and moved on. It shows the workers’ bravery and determination as they balance on the steel beam, hundreds of feet above the ground, while enjoying their lunch. Lunch atop a Skyscraper perfectly captures the spirit of the American people during the Great Depression. Back then, photographers weren’t considered artists, they were just the operators of a machine. The Shot That Became a Symbol of the American Spirit. The photo initially appeared in the New York Herald Tribune shortly after it was taken, but it didn’t achieve its iconic status until much later. For over 70 years, the iconic image taken during the construction of the Rockefeller Center in New York, along with many of his other skyscraper photographs, had been mis-credited by the Bettman archives as “photographer unknown”. Ebbets in 1932 – although he wasn’t officially recognised as the photographer until 2003. Ebbets and His Famous 'Lunchtime Atop a Skyscraper' Photoīelow is one of the most iconic images of all time, “Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper.” It was taken by Charles C.
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