When it comes to ‘high risk’ jobs, nothing could be more heart stopping than having to wander about the steel frame of a partially constructed skyscraper. Long before the words ‘health and safety’ entered the occupational lexicon, you had men like this!
This steelworker casually strolls along a beam on the Socony–Mobil Building halfway through its construction with the same ease and confidence as someone just walking along the sidewalk. This 45-story, 572-foot-tall (174 m) skyscraper in the Murray Hill and East Midtown neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City would be constructed between 1954 and 1956. This image was captured in 1955.
