The Enduring Mystery Behind Iconic American Photograph ‘Lunch on a Beam’

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Eleven construction workers eat lunch and talk while sitting on a steel beam high above New York City, with skyscrapers visible far below and a hazy skyline in the background.

A new book explores the untold and still-mysterious story of the many people behind one of America’s most iconic photographs Lunch on a Beam — and the lingering question of who actually took the famed image.

When Rockefeller Center was built during the Great Depression, the project not only produced Art Deco skyscrapers but also led to one of history’s most widely recognized photographs. The image, known as Lunch on a Beam, also called Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, shows ironworkers eating lunch on a steel beam during the construction of Rockefeller Center’s RCA Building in 1932.

A man in dress pants, suspenders, and a button-up shirt sits on a steel beam high above a city skyline, holding a vintage camera with the Empire State Building visible in the background.

A man wearing a hat and smoking a cigarette crouches on a steel beam high above a city, with the Empire State Building visible in the misty background. He holds a camera, suggesting he is a photographer.

The photograph has become so famous that its composition is instantly recognizable: a row of 11 men seated casually on a narrow beam high above Manhttan, with the dense New York skyline in the background. But despite its fame, many of the details behind the photograph — who exactly took it, who the workers were, and how the moment came together — remained unclear for years.

A construction worker stands on a steel beam high above New York City while a photographer takes his picture. Skyscrapers, including the Chrysler Building, fill the background under a hazy sky.

Eleven construction workers sit on a steel beam high above New York City, eating lunch and waving their hats, with skyscrapers visible far below in the background.

Lunch on a Beam: The Making of an American Photograph by Rockefeller Center archivist Christine Roussel (published by Brandeis University Press) revisits the image and combines archival research and historical context to shed light on how it was created.

In Lunch on a Beam, Christine Roussel sets out what is known and still uncertain about the famous photograph, particularly the question of who actually took it and how it was produced. She explains that the image was part of a larger coordinated Rockefeller Center publicity effort in the early 1930s, involving multiple press photographers working for agencies that supplied striking images to newspapers and magazines. Original assignment records have not survived, and the image cannot be conclusively attributed to any single photographer. But she notes that three photographers from that day — Charles Ebbets, Thomas Kelley, and William Leftwich — are known to have been present. However, only Ebbets’s family has claimed he took the iconic shot, relying mainly on a handwritten note from his wife as supporting evidence.

Black and white photo of eleven construction workers eating lunch on a steel beam high above New York City, with the book title "Lunch on a Beam" by Christine Roussel overlaid in large text.

Drawing on material from the Rockefeller Center Archives, Lunch on a Beam highlights the complex layers behind a single photograph. It focuses on the workers who built the structure under dangerous conditions and the ways in which the image contributed to a broader public narrative about New York City and its transformation during the period. Roussel brings together art, architectural, and social history surrounding the image, alongside her own experience working closely with those connected to the development of Rockefeller Center.

Lunch on a Beam: The Making of an American Photograph by Christine Roussel can be purchased here.

Image credits: All photos courtesy of Brandeis University Press.

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