Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. Well, I'll give you 234.

This photograph, painstakingly captured by Charles C. Ebbets in 1932, is a visible microcosm of the burgeoning future about to unfold in America: first, the men—pausing briefly to consume carefree calories—are headstrong and young (the life expectancy in that year was 63.5); the overt lack of safety concern suggests a type of raw capitalism, the system that allowed the American economy to bloat threefold in the next three decades; indeed, the building itself, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, was completed during a two-year span that also saw the erection of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings in New York, the country’s commercial capital; this photograph embodies the moment when the United States emerged from its adolescence as a vivacious superpower—and the men upon whom it was built.

Or does it? At the time this photograph was taken, the Great Depression was ravaging our fertile yet feeble economy. The men in the picture are lucky enough to have work—but not even all of them have lunch to eat. The emergence of crowded metropolises like New York City only creates a new proletariat working class while coating everything in a layer of grit and grime.

Thus Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper suggests an ambiguous view of the period, a time when the richest men in history—Rockefeller and others—bequeath their empires to a brave new nation, one that suddenly found itself gasping for air.