#SKYSCRAPER WORKERS PLUS#

The New York Times wrote that they “put on the best open-air show in town. The gravity-defying ironworkers balanced on narrow beams or hung from derrick lines hundreds, and even thousands, of feet above the city’s streets.

The Empire State’s construction work and its workers were a magnet for press and magazine photographers, which is how many of these iconic images of the construction work were created. They worked with minimal harnesses (sometimes without any), walked nonchalantly along beams suspended hundreds of feet above the street, swung on cables, sometimes they even took short naps on the metallic beams. The hardworking men way up high who were moving girders, riveting, painting, and even just eating lunch or resting earned a reputation for being daredevils. The only thing as impressive as the Empire State Building are the men who built it and during that time rules for construction workers were a lot laxer than they are today. Compare this to the 30 who died during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge or the over 1,200 who lost their lives during the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad.Īs for the possibility of your everyday pedestrian being killed by a coin dropped from the roof of the Empire State Building? Nonexistent.īy Diana Bocco, contributor for Ripleys.The daredevil sky boys who built the Empire State Building, 1930-1931 Given the high risk and lack of safety equipment (no harnesses or hard hats anywhere), it’s surprising that “just” five workers died during the construction of the building. The confirmed deaths were caused by either falls or being struck by objects, with wet weather playing a part in at least some of the deaths. Unfounded rumors and a story published on the New York Daily News put the death toll at 14 men or even hundreds, although this has never been verified. There are five known deaths surrounding the construction of the Empire State Building.

All workers earned $15 a day and on busy days (especially towards the end of the construction project), 3,000 men could be onsite at the same time.Įmbed from Getty Images When Tragedy Strikes A significant number of the ironworkers on site were Mohawk who had come over from the Kahnawake reservation specifically to work on the building.

#SKYSCRAPER WORKERS PLUS#

The 3,400-strong task force - often referred to back then as “the sky boys” - was made up of mainly Italian and Irish immigrant laborers who did everything from laying bricks and installing elevators, to setting up heating and ventilation, plus everything in between. This wouldn’t be possible today, when (thankfully) safety regulations and standards would demand the use of harnesses as a very minimum - but these daredevils were even a rarity back then, and press photographers loved them. You’ve seen the photos: workers walking or sitting on beams swinging up 80 stories up in the air, hanging from precarious cables or jumping over open spaces hundreds of feet above the street. The Daredevil Sky BoysĪs impressive as the Empire State Building still is today, perhaps more impressive is the men who are behind its construction. Sounds like a lot of money, but this was actually under budget (and ahead of schedule). And it wasn’t one that came cheap either - in today’s money, the land, planning, and construction of the Empire State Building cost the equivalent to over $750 million.

Skyscraper workers