Men at Lunch
Shots of modern men rebuilding One World Trade Center stirringly evokes the majestic photo's continuing connection to the present.
Men at Lunch
New York City, 1932. The country is in the throes of the Great Depression, the previous decade's boom of Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants has led to unprecedented urban expansion, and in the midst of an unseasonably warm autumn, steelworkers risk life and limb building skyscrapers high above the streets of Manhattan.
In Men at Lunch, director Seán Ó Cualáin tells the story of "Lunch atop a Skyscraper," the iconic photograph taken during the construction of Rockefeller Center that depicts eleven workmen taking their lunch break while casually perched along a steel girder – boots dangling 850 feet above the sidewalk, Central Park and the misty Manhattan skyline stretching out behind them.
For 80 years, the identity of the eleven men – and the photographer that immortalized them – remained a mystery: their stories, lost in time, subsumed by the fame of the image itself. But then, at the start of the 21st century, the photograph finally began to give up some of its secrets. Part homage, part investigation, Men at Lunch is the sublime tale of an American icon, an unprecedented race to the sky and the immigrant workers that built New York.
In Men at Lunch, director Seán Ó Cualáin tells the story of "Lunch atop a Skyscraper," the iconic photograph taken during the construction of Rockefeller Center that depicts eleven workmen taking their lunch break while casually perched along a steel girder – boots dangling 850 feet above the sidewalk, Central Park and the misty Manhattan skyline stretching out behind them.
For 80 years, the identity of the eleven men – and the photographer that immortalized them – remained a mystery: their stories, lost in time, subsumed by the fame of the image itself. But then, at the start of the 21st century, the photograph finally began to give up some of its secrets. Part homage, part investigation, Men at Lunch is the sublime tale of an American icon, an unprecedented race to the sky and the immigrant workers that built New York.
Genre
Documentary
Web Site
Runtime
70
Language
English
Director
Seán Ó Cualáin
FEATURED REVIEW
Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News
A stirring and inventive look into the mystery and origin of the famous 1932 picture “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper,” in which 11 workers brown-bag it on a beam while building Rockefeller Center. We get cultural and artistic assessments, a historical perspective and personal connections (two men are ...
Played at
Lumiere Music Hall 10.04.13 - 10.10.13
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