The Workers Who Built the Empire State Building: Restoring the Forgotten Faces of a Landmark
When most people think of the Empire State Building, they picture the sleek Art Deco spire, King Kong climbing the tower, or the iconic silhouette glowing over Manhattan.
But very few people ever think about the hands that built it — the thousands of real human beings who risked their lives to construct one of the most famous buildings on Earth.
The story of the Empire State Building isn’t just a tale of engineering brilliance.
It’s a story of immigrants.
It’s a story of labour.
It’s a story of communities whose contributions were erased from the history books.
And today, we’re putting their names back where they belong.
🏗️ The Reality Behind the Myth: Who Actually Built the Empire State Building?
Construction began in 1930, at the height of the Great Depression, when work was scarce and danger was constant.
The tower climbed 102 stories in just 13 months — a feat that still shocks modern engineers.
But what’s often left out is who made this miracle possible.
🇮🇪 Irish Workers: Backbone of Early Skyscraper Construction
Irish immigrants and first-generation Irish Americans made up a huge portion of New York’s labour force during the 1920s and 30s.
They:
- Carried steel
- Mixed concrete
- Dug foundations
- Worked the ground crews
- Hauled materials up freight lifts
- Built the structure one dangerous floor at a time
Many were paid very little. Many lived in cold-water flats.
But their labour literally shaped the skyline.
🇮🇹 Italian Workers: Skilled Tradespeople Who Lifted Cities
Italian immigrants were equally essential, especially in masonry, stonework, and steel trades.
They brought craftsmanship, physical strength, and years of experience from construction sites all over North America.
Italian workers:
- Laid brick
- Set stone
- Cut materials
- Erected scaffolding
- Worked steel
- Installed interior finishes
Their fingerprints are in the walls of the Empire State Building — literally and figuratively.
🇨🇦🇺🇸 The Mohawk Ironworkers: The Skywalkers of North America
And then there are the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) ironworkers, whose stories were nearly erased.
These men came from communities like:
- Kahnawà:ke (near Montreal)
- Akwesasne
- Six Nations of the Grand River
By the 1930s, Mohawk ironworkers were already famed for their skill and bravery working hundreds of feet above the ground, balanced on beams the width of a boot sole.
They played an enormous role in building New York’s greatest bridges and towers.
On the Empire State Building, they:
- Walked the high steel
- Set rivets
- Guided beams into place
- Built the steel skeleton itself
They worked without harnesses — not because they were “fearless,” as newspapers romanticized, but because early safety equipment simply didn’t exist.
They weren’t reckless.
They were workers surviving in a world that asked Indigenous men to do the most dangerous jobs for the lowest pay.
And many of them sent their earnings home to support entire communities.
🌆 So Why Did History Erase Them?
Because early 20th-century media focused almost entirely on:
- wealthy financiers
- architects
- developers
- “men of vision”
Meanwhile, the people who lifted the building into existence were rarely named.
Immigrants, Indigenous workers, and labourers from poor neighbourhoods were rarely photographed, interviewed, or documented.
They were seen as “replaceable.”
But they were not.
They were essential.
And now we’re finally telling their stories.
🏛️ Why This Matters Today
This isn’t just about the Empire State Building.
It’s about how we treat workers, whose labour modern society takes for granted.
It’s about all the:
- artists
- stonemasons
- ironworkers
- labourers
- craftspeople
…whose names disappeared behind corporate logos and government plaques.
It’s about the same system that erased Charles Marega, the brilliant sculptor who created the Lions on Vancouver’s Lions Gate Bridge — a man nearly forgotten despite shaping the identity of an entire city.
This blog series is about correcting that.
🔥 What’s Coming Next: The Forgotten Creators Series
This post is the beginning of a larger project to honour the workers and artists who built the world around us.
Upcoming posts will include:
Part 2 — Charles Marega: The Hidden Genius Behind Vancouver’s Iconic Lions
The story of the sculptor who shaped Vancouver’s identity but died before receiving recognition.
Part 3 — The Mohawk Skywalkers: Indigenous Ironworkers Who Built North America
From the Empire State Building to the World Trade Center.
Part 4 — The Immigrant Builders of the Golden Age
Italian, Irish, Chinese, South Asian, Filipino, and Eastern European workers whose stories never made the plaques.
Part 5 — Whose Name Gets Remembered? A Look at Erasure in Architecture
Why monuments honour bosses instead of builders.
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