Posters: Lunch on a Skyscraper

There is something about the poster "Lunch on a Skyscraper" that makes it unique and distinct. Here you find eleven construction workers pausing for a break several feet above the New York skyline of 1932. But some have asked "is Lunch on a Skyscraper a real photograph or was it made of two separate photographs that were superimposed on one each other"?

1932 was a busy time in New York. What was to become the capital city of world culture was itself undergoing a cultural revolution. The craze then was to make buildings as tall and as impressive as possible. Some say that the Lunch on a Skyscraper poster actually shows construction workers having lunch at the site of the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. This is very possible because the picture was taken in 1932, a peak period in the construction of the first ten buildings at the Rockefeller Center.

But what else do we know about Lunch on a Skyscraper? Well, we can also tell that it was originally made of two separate photographs. This obvious conclusion was drawn from the fact that the men sit on a beam with no restraints around them. In reality this would not have been permitted under existing building regulations.

So, the most probable explanation about the origin of this poster is that it was made from two separate photographs superimposed on each other. The first photograph is indeed of the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, New York. The second photograph consists of eleven construction workers sitting on a beam and having lunch. The original background of the second photograph was removed allowing for a near perfect superimposition on the first.

Notwithstanding, this poster unlike a lot of posters in its category is charming and magnetic. It also happens to be one of the most famous antique New York posters.  We do hope you like it.

Thanks to Art.com for permitting the use of the poster shown above.

More information on other posters is also available.