Men At Work The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen Who Built It - Hardcover

Glenn Kurtz

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1644215020 ISBN 13: 9781644215029

Publisher: Seven Stories Press, 2025

Synopsis

Who built the Empire State Building? Astonishingly, no list of workmen on this historic landmark was ever compiled. While the names of the owners, architects, and contractors are well known, and Lewis Hine left us indelible images of the workers, their identities - the last generation of workmen still practising these time-honoured trades, have not been identified until author Glenn Kurtz unearthed their individual stories for this book. Drawing on eclectic sources - census, immigration, and union records; contemporary journalism; the personal recollections of their descendants - Kurtz assembles biographies of these workers. He creates not only a portrait of the building's labour force, and a revolutionary re-interpretation of Hine's world-famous photographs, but also a fundamental reimagining of what made the Empire State Building a fitting symbol for the nation, built as it was at the very height of the Great Depression.

About this title

About the Author

GLENN KURTZ is the author of Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014) and Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music (Knopf, 2007). The recipient of a 2016-2017 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Glenn is a graduate of Tufts University and the New England Conservatory of Music and holds a PhD from Stanford University.

From the Back Cover

The author of Three Minutes in Poland and Practicing uncovers the identities of the Empire State Building construction workers, made famous by Lewis W. Hine's legendary portraits.

This little-known chapter of American labor history captures forgotten stories and features more than 75 photos and other illustrations-some by Hine that have never been seen before-of working class, immigrant, and indigenous lives who built the architectural icon.

Who built the Empire State Building? Astonishingly, no list

Edition details

• Publisher: Seven Stories Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1644215020
• ISBN 13: 9781644215029
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352