MEN AT LUNCH at the GFT

My legs were dizzy throughout the documentary , there is an urban myth that has turned into an accepted fact that this iconic photograph is a photoshoped fake.The first real question the documentary affirmatively answer the photograph is genuine.Thereafter all the stories and claims are up for grabs , which adds to the mystery of the photo and the people behind it.More important than the actual identity of the characters is the story behind the situation of how they got to where they where , 800 ft above the Manhattan Skyline without any support harnesses eating lunch during a break from building the centre-piece of the Rockefeller Centre now famously known as 30-Rock.

The whole episode speaks of the New Deal and what is was supposed to achieve , and for whom.



This piece from the Irish Times gives a decent description of the story told in the film

"Seán Ó Cualáin does an excellent job of grouping together a potted study of the immigrant experience with an examination of the photograph’s history and an analysis of the various Irish connections."

Immediately noticeable is the non-presence of any African-Americans or Latinos , one of the shameful episodes of the early Trade Union Movements in the UK , South Africa ( where Robert Tressell of the "ragged trousered philanthropists" fame came from) and the US  was the severe anti-Irish in the case of the UK and virulent anti-Black in the case of the later two stance they took to protecting whites from having their jobs taken by blacks.Robert Tressells only known trade union activity is the organising of strikes to prevent blacks taking white only jobs and in the US even respected "socialists" like Jack London were hostile to blacks taking over roles of the whites.This article also points out the role played in creating the New York skyline by the Naive-Americans. 

"Many of today’s ironworkers say that poster versions of the photo hang in their homes, and in the homes of ironworker relatives. One of these men says that he comes from a long line of Irish and “Newfies.”
Montrealers know that many local Mohawks helped to build New York, and other U.S. cities, too. There’s some information about them on a web page of The Smithsonian Institution.
Germans, Scandinavians and Irish did this work, as well. (We don’t see any black or Asian faces in any of the photographs, presumably because of discrimination back then.)"

The above mentioned article referring to the contribution of the Mohawk Indians is in this link.

“A lot of people think Mohawks aren’t afraid of heights; that’s not true. We have as much fear as the next guy. The difference is that we deal with it better. We also have the experience of the old timers to follow and the responsibility to lead the younger guys. There’s pride in ‘walking iron.’” —Kyle Karonhiaktatie Beauvais (Mohawk, Kahnawake)"

One of the observances of the film that stand out in the mind is that these men were more important at their precarious perch 60-odd stories high without any safety aids  , for the contrived image the employers wanted to portray of the building work and the morale of the workforce, than they would ever be when they got back to ground level to become a mass of replaceable nobodys , which it is why it is somewhat befitting that we do not really know their names , only their shared story and what it means to their age and ours about what the individual Human is worth.

A case in point to how much the men who made Manhattan were really work to the owners who build the buildings in encased in the story of the mural designed by Diego Rivera which would have honoured then in stone , the mural was never allowed to be scene by the public and eventually destroyed as it represented to much of the potential champions of these men.To this end this article records the background of the failure of the only real tribute in stone that would have recognised the men on the beam in a way they would have liked to be remembered. 

Notable in this exchange of letters between Rivera and Rockefeller is the compromise suggestion by Rivera which was not taken up.

"I should like, as far as possible, to find an acceptable solution to the problem you raise, and suggest that I could change the sector which shows society people playing bridge and dancing, and put in its place, in perfect balance with the Lenin portion, a figure of some great American historical leader, such as Lincoln, who symbolizes the unification of the country and the abolition of slavery, surrounded by John Brown, Nat Turner, William Lloyd Garrison or Wendell Phillips and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and perhaps some scientific figure like McCormick, inventor of the McCormick reaper, which aided in the victory of the antislavery forces by providing sufficient wheat to sustain the Northern armies.

I am sure that the solution I propose will entirely clarify the historical meaning of the figure of leader as represented by Lenin and Lincoln, and no one will be able to object to them without objecting to the most fundamental feelings of human love and solidarity and the constructive social force represented by such men. Also it will clarify the general meaning of the painting."