Charles C. Ebbets (1905-1978)

These men were photographed sitting way up high above New York City on their lunch break during the construction of Rockefeller Center’s RCA Building (now called the G.E. Building), in 1932.

During the Great Depression, when one of every five Americans was unemployed and could find no job, the U.S. spent millions of dollars on construction of national parks and roads, to help put people to work. The government also hired the best photographers of the day, including Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and many others, to document the nation’s recovery.

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