Story behind the iconic Lunch Atop a Skyscraper photo

[John1956PA]

2. The beam was suspended about 10 feet above a deck.

From http://wackulus.com/how-charles-c-ebbets-captured-this-iconic-shot-it-was-staged/ :

The men on this photo were working on the construction of the 69th floor. When these buildings were constructed, they were laid out a floor at a time, meaning that if they were working on the 69th floor, that the 68th beams were in and at least a wooden substructure was in place for workers to stand on. On most floors, this would simply mean that if the men fell toward the building they would only fall a story, but if they fell backwards they would tumble down all of the way to the street.

However, the 67th floor is one of the floors that had a roof above it. This roof essentially lined up with the 68th floor. Because of this, the 69th floor actually didn’t extend nearly as far as the 68th floor, meaning that these workers would have only fallen 10 feet or so because landing on the next floor.

This doesn’t take away from the photo and the ability of the photographer to capture the spirit of the times, but it does mean that these workers were relatively safe while taking this picture.