Empire State Building Workers Faced extreme Risks, New Book Reveals
new York, NY – A new book, Men at Work: The Untold Story of the Empire State Building and the Craftsmen Who Built It, sheds light on the perilous conditions and largely forgotten stories of the workers who constructed the iconic skyscraper in the 1930s. While the building’s architectural grandeur is widely celebrated, the human cost of its creation – including a shockingly high rate of injury and death – has remained largely obscured.
the Empire State Building rose at a breathtaking pace, completed in just 13 months during the Great Depression.But this speed came at a notable risk to the roughly 3,400 workers involved. The book details the everyday dangers faced by ironworkers, carpenters, and other craftsmen, working at extreme heights with minimal safety precautions.
Author Glenn Kurtz highlights the stories of individuals like Vladimir Kozloff, a Russian immigrant who served as secretary for the House Wreckers Union and fought for worker protections in the risky demolition industry, and matthew McKean, a Scottish carpenter who left behind his wife and two children. Many workers, like terrazzo craftsman Ferruccio Mariutto, were recent immigrants, arriving in the US with only a few years before their untimely deaths - Mariutto likely succumbed to mesothelioma related to asbestos exposure shortly before his 64th birthday.
A famous photograph by Lewis Hine,depicting eleven men casually eating lunch on a girder high above New York City,has become a symbol of the building’s construction. Kurtz argues that focusing on the image as a symbol diminishes the reality of the men’s lives. “his use as a symbol almost precludes attention to him as an actual person,” Kurtz states. He speculates,with 50% confidence,that one of these men may have been Dick McCarthy,a second-generation american who died in 1983,based on a physical resemblance.
Kurtz emphasizes that architectural narratives frequently enough overlook the contributions and sacrifices of the workers themselves. “The lives and experience of actual workers are marginalised,” he says. “They are too ‘ordinary’ to be captivating. Yet their skill, their training, and the specific conditions of their workplaces, are all profoundly crucial to architectural history. They are how every building gets built.”
Men at Work: The Untold Story of the Empire State Building and the Craftsmen Who Built It by Glenn Kurtz (Seven Stories Press, £25) is available at https://www.guardianbookshop.com/men-at-work-9781644215029?utm_source=editoriallink&utm_medium=merch&utm_campaign=article. Delivery charges may apply.
