I’m sure you’ve seen this one. famous photography more than once. Is called “Lunch at the top of a skyscraper“, and was taken on September 20, 1932. It shows eleven men eating casually while sitting on a beam, 260 meters high. A new attraction called The Beam, which has opened on the same site, reveals the trick.
“Lunch at the top of a skyscraper” is one of the best-selling photographs in history. In the 10 years he held the rights, Corbin sold more than 100 prints a month. It has appeared in advertisements, films, and many other places.
The photo is not faked. Those workers are there, sitting on the beam. For 70 years the identity of the author was not known, but after several investigations, everything indicates that it is the work of photographer Charles Clyde Ebbets.
The big secret of the most famous photo in history, revealed
The photograph was taken in the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center, which was renamed the GE Building in 1988 following General Electric’s purchase of RCA, and was renamed the Comcast Building in 2015.
The workers seen in the photo worked on the construction of the skyscraper. The innkeeper was celebrating that they had already finished it. In this card you have a lot of curiosities and secrets about the mythical capture, from the identity of the workers, to how its author was discovered:
Photographer Charles Clyde Ebbets took his big secret to the grave. How did you take the photo? Are they really sitting on a beam, 260 meters high, at the top of a skyscraper, while they eat and chat carelessly?
Almost a century later, in that same place, at the top of Rockefeller Center, it has opened a tourist attraction called The Beam, which reveals the trick that Ebbets used to take the famous photograph. Here you can see it:
As the video shows, a beam with people on it rises a few meters above the ground. If the photo is taken from the same height, the ground does not appearand it gives the impression that they are hanging on the beam 260 meters high.
It is something that was already taken for granted in the case of “Lunch at the top of a skyscraper“. Although there is no proof, there are many similar photos with other people and in other buildings, indicating that It was a common trick already known by professional photographers in the 1930s..
Most likely, under that beam on which the eleven workers are sitting, there is a ground a little lower, which cannot be seen. A fall would be a severe blow, but it would not be fatal. That’s why they seem so carefree.
The Beam attraction shows us the trick used by one of the most famous photos in history. These types of techniques are part of the magic of photography, and do not detract from the quality or importance of the capture.
