A weathered construction worker perched on a steel cable a quarter-mile above Manhattan reaches up to tighten a bolt, with the Hudson River and sprawling New York cityscape far below. This death-defying moment, captured by photographer Lewis Hine in an image known as "The Sky Boy," symbolized the courage and determination of the 3,000 workers who built the Empire State Building during its breakneck 13-month construction from 1930 to 1931. If someone fell from that height, it would take approximately 11 seconds to hit the ground.
The Empire State Building, standing 102 stories tall at 1,250 feet high, was then the world's tallest structure. John Jakob Raskob, one of America's richest men who helped finance the project, described these workers as being like astronauts, "going to places no man had gone before" and embodying American strength and ambition. Yet despite their heroic contributions, these men in work dungarees remain largely unknown and unsung in history.
Hine, renowned for his empathetic studies of workers, artisans, and immigrants, was hired to document the Empire State Building's construction. His photographs captured workers performing their dangerous jobs: drilling foundations, wrestling with pipes and cables, laying bricks, and navigating precarious steel beams as the massive skyscraper took shape. These structural ironworkers, a tight-knit fraternity of Scandinavians, Irish-Americans, and Kahnawà:ke Mohawks, were self-proclaimed "roughnecks" who considered themselves the undisputed kings of construction daredevilry.
Today, the Empire State Building offers tourists a sanitized version of this history through bronze sculptures of old-time construction workers and artificial soundscapes of machinery and shouting ironworkers. This genuinely heroic construction feat has been transformed into just another visitor experience. While history celebrates the wealthy commissioners like Alfred Smith, a former New York governor and Democratic presidential candidate, and the architects Shreve, Lamb and Harmon who designed the distinctive Art Deco style, the actual builders remain anonymous.
A new book titled "Men at Work" by Glenn Kurtz finally sheds light on some of these forgotten workers. Kurtz, whose father's office was in the Empire State Building, grew up visiting the structure and became intrigued by Hine's photographs. His interest deepened when he discovered a small plaque in the building's lobby bearing the names of 32 men who received craftsmanship awards for their work. "Hine's portraits play such an important role in the mythology surrounding not only the Empire State Building, but also 1930s America in general," Kurtz explains. "I was astonished to learn that no one had ever inquired about the men pictured."
Researching these workers proved extremely challenging. Construction workers often lived itinerant lives to avoid official attention, employment records from the era were rarely preserved, and ordinary people's private lives remained largely undocumented. This made it difficult even to accurately count workplace fatalities. While the official death toll is five, Kurtz believes at least eight people died: seven construction workers (one ruled a suicide) and one passerby, Elizabeth Eager, who was struck by a falling plank.
Through painstaking research of census data, immigration records, union documents, newspaper accounts, and interviews with descendants, Kurtz brought several workers' stories to light. Victor "Frenchy" Gosselin, a specialist "connector" who caught suspended beams and moved them into place, became somewhat famous through Hine's photograph showing him nonchalantly straddling a hoisting ball in shorts and work boots. This image later appeared on a 2013 U.S. Postal Service stamp. Gosselin died tragically at age 46 in a car accident, leaving behind a widow and two young sons.
Other compelling stories emerged from Kurtz's research. Vladimir Kozloff, born in Russia, served as secretary for the House Wreckers Union throughout the 1930s and worked to win safety protections for workers in this dangerous profession. Matthew McKean, a carpenter who emigrated from Scotland, left behind his wife and two children. Terrazzo craftsman Ferruccio Mariutto had been in the United States only two years when he worked on the Empire State Building and died before his 64th birthday, probably from mesothelioma related to asbestos exposure.
Kurtz makes his most controversial claim regarding the identity of the famous "Sky Boy" in Hine's photograph. He speculates with "50 percent confidence" that the unknown worker was Dick McCarthy, a second-generation American and grandson of Irish immigrants who lived in Brooklyn until his death in 1983. Although Hine left no identifying notes, Kurtz points to physical resemblances between McCarthy and the Sky Boy as evidence for his theory.
"Considering the worldwide fame of this photo, it's astonishing we do not know the name of the man," Kurtz observes. "His use as a symbol almost precludes attention to him as an actual person." This anonymity reflects a broader historical pattern where architectural narratives disregard the human cost of construction. As Kurtz notes, "History is made by the few, not the many. The lives and experience of actual workers are marginalized. They are too ordinary 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."
