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Interesting sights of New York. Sculpture "Lunch on a skyscraper".
Interesting sights of New York. Sculpture "Lunch on a skyscraper".
If you are in the right place at the right time, you can see an interesting attraction not only in New York, but also in America as a whole - a sculpture of 11 people sitting on a metal beam. And although this creation is 15 years old (created in 2001), its history began more than 80 years ago!
The author was inspired to create this sculpture by one iconic photograph taken back in 1932, on September 20, during the construction of one of the buildings of the Rockefeller Center. This is one of the most famous photographs in the world - Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, which shows 11 men sitting on a metal beam, having lunch and chatting at an altitude of about 256 meters!
Despite the fact that the photo is staged, all the participants are real and the events really took place during the construction of the skyscraper. According to official information, it was the 69th floor of the future building! But on the faces of those sitting there is neither fear nor anxiety!
This was the period of the Great Depression. Lack of money and unemployment contributed to the fact that people agreed to any job, not really thinking about security. The prospect of starving to death scared them much more.
And it was this photo that inspired the sculptor Sergio Furnari to create the “dining workers”.
His initial idea was to show in his sculpture the people, thanks to whom and whose hands New York was built, and the United States as a whole. Furnari, himself an Italian-American, wanted to dedicate the sculpture to all the immigrants who helped and made America what it is today.
But shortly before the completion of work in 2001, the infamous events of 9/11 occurred. And Sergio Furnari decided to slightly change the concept and called his sculpture "Lunchtime on a Skyscraper - A Tribute to America's Heroes".
For a long time it stood near Ground Zero - the place where the twin towers of the World Trade Center used to be. She simultaneously inspired the workers who dismantled the rubble and rebuilt New York, and was a symbol of these brave and strong people.
Later, in 2003, Furnari installed the sculpture on his truck, turning it into a kind of "mobile museum".
In 2007, part of the sculpture - one of the participants in the "lunch" - was stolen. After some time, they did find it, restored it, and now it pleases the eye again. November 2015 Furnari went on a truck tour of American cities with his sculpture so that as many people as possible could see his creation.
As for the "Lunch on a Skyscraper" photo itself, for a long time it was not known who was the author of this picture. A whole detective investigation was carried out, as a result of which only in 2003 it was found out that the author of the picture was photographer Charles Ebbets (although some still doubt this). He filmed the construction of Rockefeller Center. And this photo was not only one of his pictures, but was also planned as an advertisement for the future skyscraper. We also managed to find out the names of the fearless builders captured in the frame. All these searches led to the creation of the documentary "Men at Lunch".