The more I look at this photo the more I think something ain’t right. I don’t think this was photo shopped because I remember seeing this pic in the 1950s. But I still think this must be some sort of trick.
I don’t care if these construction guys are used to working high up. The whole setup looks dangerous and improbable. How did all eleven of them get out on that girder? When the noon whistle went did they all file out one by one? What if the guy in the middle needs to go to the washroom?
What about sudden gusts of wind that can arise way up there? Have they never heard of those? What if one of them has allergies and starts sneezing? What if one of them talks with his hands and accidentally smacks the guy next to him?
Does anyone know the history of this classic picture? Because it sure seems improbable to me!
Thank you, but I am not sure what you mean. I am pretty sure I once saw this photo in the 1950s. Way before photo shop. You say the girder was “shopped” out? So were they originally sitting on a girder? I am a bit dense, sorry.
The photo in your OP has the girder shopped out for who knows what reason. It looks really stupid. But, yes, the original photo with the girder (the photo that most people are familiar with) was set-up as a publicity shot. It is not a documentary image.
Okay, I guess this is a short thread. So the pic was a staged publicity shot, the workers actually had a floor under them, and workers did not normally take such stupid risks when they could have had lunch on a much safer flat surface.
Another thing that makes the shot look staged is that each of the workers is interacting with the guy next to them and have sheepish smiles as if they had been told to do that by the photographer and are slightly embarrassed. And nobody seems to be actually eating lunch.
I don’t see anything to indicate that there’s a floor under them, altho the article did say it was a publicity shot of the nearly-completes building, so it’s possible they were no more than 10’ or so above a solid surface.
The shot may have been staged, they really are way up there, and i don’t see anything that indicates a safety net or floor underneath. These guys are iron workers. They spent their days moving those girders around and riveting them in place with little or no safety equipment. Just sitting down on one having a smoke would have been the least taxing part of their day, staged or not.
Look at the bottom of the frame in running coach’s link. You can see the planks. It might not look like the floor is below the girder, but that’s just perspective.
The wiki article says that one of the photographed workers sent a letter home to his family suggesting there was a floor directly beneath them. I had suspected some Harold Lloyd type trickery:
I think suggestions of a floor underneath in the OP’s photo were put out just to ease some people’s fears. in reality, these guys worked at extreme heights on beams and girders as a matter of course.
Actually no. A friend was an ironworker for years. Many coworkers would drink as much as they could over lunch, and drug use was pretty common. My friend couldn’t do it, but drinking at lunch was the norm.
