Poised on a steel cable a quarter of a mile above Manhattan, a weather-beaten man in work dungarees reaches up to tighten a bolt. Below, though you hardly dare to look down, lies the Hudson River, the sprawling cityscape of New York and the US itself, rolling out on to the far horizon. If you fell from this rarefied spot, it would take about 11 seconds to hit the ground.<\/p>\n
Captured by photographer Lewis Hine, The Sky Boy, as the image became known, encapsulated the daring and vigour of the men who built the Empire State Building, then the world\u2019s tallest structure at 102 storeys and 1,250ft (381m) high. Like astronauts, they were going to places no man had gone before, testing the limits of human endurance, giving physical form to ideals of American puissance, \u201ca land which reached for the sky with its feet on the ground\u201d, according to John Jakob Raskob, then one of the country\u2019s richest men, who helped bankroll the building.<\/p>\n
Like astronauts, they were going to places no man had gone before<\/p>\n
Known for his empathic studies of workers, artisans and immigrants, Hine was hired to document the development of the Empire State Building during its breakneck 13-month construction period from 1930-31. Along with formal portraits of individual workers, he recorded men animatedly performing their jobs: drilling foundations, wrestling with pipes and cables, laying bricks and navigating precipitous steel beams as the colossal skyscraper took shape above Manhattan.<\/p>\n
Today, visitors to the Empire State can take selfies with bronze sculptures of old-timey construction fellows, wreathed in a confected soundscape of \u201cironworkers and masons shouting over the din of machinery, moving steel beams into position, and tossing hot rivets into place\u201d. This genuinely heroic feat of construction has long been commodified into a yet another visitor experience.<\/p>\n
Death-defying \u2026 the 1931 image that became known as The Sky Boy \u2013 although Hine called it Icarus, High Up on Empire State. Photograph: Lewis W Hine\/George Eastman House<\/p>\n
History valorises the ambitious, affluent men who commissioned the Empire State, including Alfred Smith, a former governor of New York and Democratic presidential candidate. It also valorises its architects, Messrs Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, who alighted on a distinctive art deco style, with prefabricated parts designed to be duplicated accurately in quantity and then brought to site and put together in a similar manner to a car assembly line.<\/p>\n
The men in dungarees raised the steel frame as others \u2013 carpenters, glaziers, stonemasons \u2013 followed<\/p>\n
Yet the men who assembled those parts \u2013 3,000 workers toiled on site each day \u2013 are largely unknown and unsung. Even The Sky Boy \u2013 for all his romantic allure \u201clifted like Lindbergh in ecstatic solitude\u201d, as one commentator rhapsodised \u2013 remains unidentified. The man in dungarees was simply part of a gang of structural ironworkers, who raised the building\u2019s steel frame, leading the way upward as other tradesmen \u2013 carpenters, glaziers, tilers and stonemasons \u2013 followed in their wake.<\/p>\n
A tight-knit fraternity of Scandinavians, Irish-Americans and Kahnaw\u00e0:ke Mohawks, the ironworkers were self-proclaimed \u201croughnecks\u201d, undisputed kings of constructional derring-do. As the New York Times writer CG Poore put it at the time, they spent their days \u201cstrolling on the thin edge of nothingness\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nonchalant \u2026 Victor \u2018Frenchy\u2019 Gosselin in an image that was used on stamps. Photograph: Lewis W Hine<\/p>\n
Fleshing out the men behind the myth, a new book called Men at Work throws light on the lives and opinions of a small fraction of this forgotten workforce. \u201cMy father\u2019s office was in the Empire State Building, so I grew up visiting it,\u201d says the author Glenn Kurtz. Familiar with Hine\u2019s images, his interest was further piqued by a small plaque tucked into a corner of the opulent main lobby, bearing the names of 32 men who had been singled out for \u201ccraftsmanship awards\u201d for their work on the building.<\/p>\n
\u201cHine\u2019s portraits play such an important role in the mythology surrounding not only the Empire State Building, but also 1930s America in general,\u201d says Kurtz. \u201cI was astonished to learn that no one had ever inquired about the men pictured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bringing them into focus was no easy task. Construction workers frequently led itinerant lives, to escape \u201cthe coarse grain of official attention\u201d. Employment records from the era were rarely preserved, and the private lives of ordinary people remained largely undocumented. This made it hard to properly record the number of people who died during the building\u2019s creation. Although the official figure is five, Kurtz believes at least eight people perished: seven construction workers (one of which was judged a suicide) and one passerby, Elizabeth Eager, who was hit by a falling plank.<\/p>\n
Delving into census data, immigration and union records, contemporary newspaper accounts and the personal recollections of their descendants, Kurtz illuminates Hine\u2019s images in new ways, conjuring backstories of men who, as he puts it, \u201cuntil now, have been used solely as the embodiments of generalities and abstract ideals\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pride of New York \u2026 the finished item lit in rainbow colours to celebrate Pride Day last year. Photograph: Gary Hershorn\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Take Victor \u201cFrenchy\u201d Gosselin, whose specialist skill was as a \u201cconnector\u201d, catching a suspended beam and moving it into place to be attached to the building\u2019s steel frame. A rare conjunction of personal details and exhilarating photos elevated Gosselin beyond the usual anonymity of the \u201cdevil-may-care cowboy of the skies\u201d. Hine shot him nonchalantly straddling a hoisting ball in shorts and work boots, \u00e0 la Miley Cyrus, an image that featured on a US Postal Service stamp in 2013.<\/p>\n
Kurtz elaborates on the trajectory of Gosselin\u2019s life and sudden death aged 46 in a car accident, leaving a widow and two young sons. \u201cDistinguishing Victor Gosselin, the man, from the figure in Hine\u2019s iconic photograph does not make him any less heroic,\u201d he argues. \u201cInstead, it allows us to see the photograph more fully, and it roots Gosselin\u2019s genuine heroism in a real life, tragically short and mostly unknown, rather than in a fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Honoured \u2026 the plaque in the main lobby, bearing the names of 32 men who received \u2018craftsmanship awards\u2019. Photograph: Lewis W Hine<\/p>\n
There are other no less compelling histories. Vladimir Kozloff, born in Russia, who throughout the 1930s served as secretary for the House Wreckers Union, and was active in winning protections for workers in this highly perilous profession. Or Matthew McKean, a carpenter who emigrated from Scotland, leaving behind his wife and two children. Or terrazzo craftsman Ferruccio Mariutto, who at the time of his stint on the Empire State had been in the US only two years. Like many workers, he died relatively young, just before his 64th birthday, probably of mesothelioma related to asbestos exposure.<\/p>\n
Kurtz saves his most controversial speculation until last: that the unknown Sky Boy was a man called Dick McCarthy, a second-generation American, grandson of Irish immigrants, living in Brooklyn, who died in 1983. Although Hine never left any clues in his notes, comparison of images of McCarthy and the Sky Boy point up a tantalising physical resemblance.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering the worldwide fame of this photo, it\u2019s astonishing we do not know the name of the man,\u201d says Kurtz. \u201cHis use as a symbol almost precludes attention to him as an actual person. We may never know the truth, but I\u2019d say I have 50% confidence in my conjecture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Narratives of architecture tend to disregard the human cost of construction. History is made by the few, not the many. \u201cThe lives and experience of actual workers are marginalised,\u201d says Kurtz. \u201cThey are too \u2018ordinary\u2019 to be interesting. Yet their skill, their training, and the specific conditions of their workplaces, are all profoundly important to architectural history. They are how every building gets built.\u201d<\/p>\n