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80th Anniversary of ‘Lunch Atop a Skyscraper’

One of the most recognizable American images of all time, ‘Lunch atop a Skyscraper’ was photographed by Charles C. Ebbets on September 20, 1932. Photographed 800 feet above 47^th Street in New York City during the construction of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center, the image is now a part of the Corbis Images-owned Bettman Archive.

To celebrate the anniversary of the iconic of the image, Corbis produced a charming interactive guiding the viewer through the era of the 1930s America using the Bettman Archive - Lunch In The Sky.

No one knows the true identity of all eleven men, but it’s certain they were part of the new generation of Americans, descendants of late 19th century European migrants.

The half-built edifice on which they precariously balance is the RCA building, tallest of 14 art deco skyscrapers in the complex. When the image was first published, New York was undergoing an Indian summer and Wall Street was at its lowest level, with unemployment at 24 percent.

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