Men at Work: The Empire State Building and the untold story of the men who built it
Glenn Kurtz, Seven Stories Press, £25

THE Empire State Building was constructed from 1929 to 1931, at an inauspicious time for US capitalism, the start of the Great Depression. Nevertheless its overblown publicity made extravagant claims for its symbolism to the nation.

Architect Claude Brandon wrote: “The skyscraper is the symbol of the American spirit — restless, centrifugal, perilously poised. Its steel framework strong, held together by thousands of little rivets, finds a parallel in our highly developed industrial and economic system maintained by the labour of thousands of obscure and commonplace individuals, each one a rivet in the social structure.”

Kurtz’s book is the result of his research into the lives of many of these “obscure and commonplace individuals” in order to give them their differing identities rather than existing collectively as part of a metaphor for the country. As a starting point he took Lewis Hine’s photographs of the workmen who built the Empire State Building.

The owners’ choice of Hine (1874-1940) to record the construction of the building was an interesting one, as Hine was known for his progressive views which were apparent from the projects and campaigns he was associated with. However there were some raised eyebrows on the left at Hine’s acceptance of a commission from a capitalist consortium.

His deep-rooted affinity with the working class led him to photograph people at all manner of jobs, emphasising the physical relationship between the person and the task.

Hine maintained that he lacked the ability to put his ideas and views into words, thus relying on his camera to chronicle the US worker. In his 1932 book of photos Men At Work, Hine says: “Cities do not build themselves, machines cannot make machines unless at the back of them all are the brains and toil of men … the more machines we use the more do we need real men to make and direct them.”

He constantly emphasised the dignity of labour but this was at odds with the reality of conditions on the Empire State Building site where dangerous work was the norm and unions were discouraged.

An exhibition of Hine’s photographs was held on completion of the building to the anger of the CPUSA’s paper The Daily Worker which said: “The gall of the owners of the building to show a photo exhibition of workers who built it, who gave their lives to put it up — who own not one brick of it and are not allowed to enter it except to scrub the floors.”

Kurtz’s curiosity was aroused by a simple plaque in a dark corner of the building listing the names of 32 workers who had received craftsmanship awards for their role in the building project. From Pietro Vescovi, a terrazzo worker’s helper, to Louis Hummell, a steamfitter, a range of largely immigrant workers and their trades was represented.

Using the names on the plaque and the often anonymous photos from Hine’s book, Kurtz has attempted through his research to identify the men who built the Empire State Building and flesh out their lives.

Trawling through immigration lists, census data, newspapers and journals, trade union records and personal recollections, Kurtz has reconstructed family histories such as that of the asbestos worker Peter Madden, born to Irish immigrants in 1873, the fourth of seven children. When Hine photographed him he was 57. A descendant remembers a family story that tells of him bringing home scraps of asbestos-covered canvas which were used as dishcloths. Madden died in 1947. The use of asbestos in insulation was not banned until 1973.

Or Ferruccio Mariutto, a terrazzo worker received the craftsmanship award, as did Madden. Ferruccio lived in the Bronx, working for an Italian tile company in a highly specialised and well-paid craft. Born in Koblenz in 1912, he arrived in the US from Genoa in 1928 and boarded in a timber-framed house. He married his landlord’s niece; the two families having a long-standing connection. He became relatively prosperous and died of lung cancer in 1976.

Through his well-illustrated book, its title borrowed from Hine, Kurtz has ensured that many of these workers are no longer a mere rivet in the social structure.