Those efforts culminated at three in the afternoon on Monday, September 26, 1932, when ironworkers riveted the final beam in a “topping out” ceremony.

Topping-out ceremonies remain an important rite among ironworkers. On major jobs, the honor of completing the topmost attachment goes to the senior gang, or to another crew singled out for recognition. Other trades mark their own construction milestones. Two months after the ironworkers’ topping-out ceremony, masons worked into place the last piece of the R.C.A. Building’s limestone facade. Once again, Rockefeller Center’s publicity team was there. A photo from the masons’ ceremony identifies the man riding the last block of limestone as James Grindrod, a stone derrickman.

Lunch on a Beam. Rockefeller Group photo 110

“Lunch on a Beam” was among a number of photographs taken the week of September 26 by three intrepid photographers working with Rockefeller Center’s public relations department and photo agencies, including Acme-Newspictures, Hamilton Wright, and Newspictures Inc., that sold or freely distributed news photos to magazines and newspapers. Whether Crowell choreographed the photo shoot is unknown, but it bore all the hallmarks of the man. His office even released photographs of the photographers—made either with a timer or the help of a second photographer. “Taking risks to get pictures is an everyday affair with the crack news photographers in New York,” read each release. “Here is [Crowell would name the photographer] perched on a six-inch beam, 69 stories above the ground at ROCKEFELLER CENTER, shooting pictures for the newspapers.”

Photographer Thomas Kelley. Rockefeller Group photo 140A

Until now, the photographer who took that iconic picture has remained as much a mystery as the names of the workers in the image. The original work orders for that photo assignment have never been found in Rockefeller Center Archives, the now-defunct photography agencies, or the photographers’ studios. Most of the images cannot be attributed to an individual. Still, we know who some of the photographers were, because pictures taken that day include mind-blowing shots of the photographers themselves.

Since 1932, three photographers from that day have been identified in the archives of Rockefeller Center: Charles Ebbets, Thomas Kelley, and William Leftwich. Until now, no claim has been made, nor has evidence been produced that either William Leftwich or Thomas Kelley took the iconic image, “Lunch on a Beam.” Only Ebbets’s family has claimed he took the famous picture. Their evidence includes a handwritten note from Charlie’s wife, Joyce, attesting to his creation of “Lunch on a Beam.”

Photographer Charles Ebbets. Rockefeller Group photo

Ebbets was present at the R.C.A. Building that day, as documented in a photo of him crouching atop the steel skeleton with a camera in hand. Ebbets would often photograph himself on the job, he told an interviewer in a 1938 article for Popular Photography magazine. “In order to obviate any opportunity for critics to claim that he fakes his pictures, Charlie Ebbets carries an automatic timer in his equipment and makes a picture of himself in every setting,” the article reported. “Thus he is the most photographed camera operator ever. The timer is set for one minute, which affords the photographer ample opportunity to pose in the picture after he has focused and set the camera.”