Men at Work: The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen who Built It

This is a virtual program — online only.

In his new book, Men at Work: The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen who Built It, Glenn Kurtz re-examines the familiar story of the Empire State’s amazing construction from a perspective that has stumped previous researchers: the lives of workers who labored daily on the site. Taking the iconic photographs of Lewis W. Hine, collected in his 1932 book Men at Work as a starting point, Kurtz delved into archives, period newspapers, and corporate communications to retrieve the identities of the craftsmen that history has seen as “anonymous” symbols. Kurtz sets the Hine portraits in a new light: as specific documentation of the ordinary, mostly immigrant, men who built the world’s most famous skyscraper.