Photographer Charles Ebbets takes iconic photo “Lunch atop a skyscraper” (1932)

In the Wikipedia article on "Lunch atop a skyscraper", there is a section about the process they went through to attribute the photo to Charles Ebbets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunch_atop_a_Skyscraper#Author There is no mention of this photo, and it looks very little like the photo of him on the (deceased) artist's home page: https://www.ebbetsphoto-graphics.com/page/about-the-artist/#...

I'm quite certain that the picture is not what it claims to be. But I'm glad the Reddit thread got me to check it out.

Keep in mind that 95% of viral "Unknown picture of a famous moment you've never seen before" posts on the internet are not actually they thing they claim they are. This is definitely not a picture of Charles Ebbets taking the "Lunch atop a skyscaper" photo.

That doesn't mean they aren't cool pictures or interesting in their own right, but don't believe any title you see on a reddit post.

Edit: And this is not to pick on reddit in particular. Even historians make these mistakes. Here's a time I found a respected historian making published (but incorrect) claim of the date people started using Christmas cards because the highly respected newspaper archive he was using for research had mis-dated the scanned pages of a newspaper under '1800s' instead of '1900s': https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/k6inyt/ive_a...

I think it's pretty unusual to have photos of photographers at this point in time. Noone was interested in knowing how photos were taken, the subject wasn't the photographer. Photographer as personality happened in the 60s.

Saying that, the photo in question does look rather fine. The equipment looks right, i'd say that it's a Speed Graphic, and it looks to be the right sort of model, looks like it's got a rangefinder although he's using the wire sights for framing. Holding the front bed with the left hand for stability looks to be about right, so this i'd suggest is definitely a photographer, not a model/actor playing a photographer if you see what I mean.

The reddit thread has some interesting speculation and links, along with the usual garbage. Summarizing a few of the better parts...

The photographer in that first picture may not be Ebbets. This is apparently him:

https://www.ebbetsphoto-graphics.com/page/home/#/page/home/

https://www.ebbetsphoto-graphics.com/page/about-the-artist/#...

Credit to /u/notbob1959 for some detective work:

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/nn4q4j/h...

WaPo has a good article, and Wikipedia has some more info:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/01/one-most-i...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunch_atop_a_Skyscraper

More high steel photos here:

https://historydaily.org/charles-ebbets-lunchtime-atop-a-sky...

https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/lunch-atop-a-skyscraper-sto...

Some of these photos use the same camera trick that Harold Lloyd used in Safety Last!. The camera angle makes it look like it would be a direct fall to street level, when in fact there is a solid floor below, just out of the camera's view:

http://www.westerncostumeresearch.com/western-costume-resear...

https://silentlocations.com/2012/02/29/how-harold-lloyd-film...

That's not to say any of this wasn't dangerous! Just perhaps not quite as dangerous as they look.

The guy at the end is drinking. I though it was just water. Times have changed. My dad worked on Bart during the 70. He said, drinking was commonplace, at least amomg electricians.

The first man from the right has been identified as Slovak worker Gustáv (Gusti) Popovič from the village of Vyšný Slavkov in the Levoča District of Slovakia. Popovič was originally a lumberjack and carpenter. In 1932 he sent his wife Mária (Mariška) a postcard with this photograph on which he wrote, "Don't you worry, my dear Mariška, as you can see I'm still with bottle. Your Gusti."

Suspenders AND belt. Safety first.

Hum. This is a nice shot, but I guess the affirmation is wrong. Lets think a little about geometry... I am not a new yorker, but by simply looking at google maps, at the lunch photo, they have the Central Park at their back, and the photographer has the Empire State behind him, so I guess he should be photographing the Hudson River or just posing for the photo.

New respect for steeple jacks!

I feel slightly dizzy just by looking at this (^_^)