Anybody travelling to New York this winter will be enthralled by a stunning and breathtaking new tourist attraction that has been inspired by an iconic century-old photograph featuring Galway construction workers.
The photograph, taken at the height of the Great Depression, shows eleven workers with their boots dangling sit side by side on a steel beam eating lunch – with Central Park and the misty Manhattan skyline stretching out behind them.
In the almost 100 years since it was taken, this counterpoint of the epic and the mundane has become one of the world’s most famous images – a cultural icon and an indomitable symbol of the working man.
Two of the men on that famous image hailed from the village of Shanaglish, outside Gort; and the story behind the images was the subject of a beautiful and informative documentary some years ago, named Lon sa Speir (Lunch in the sky )
The new attraction on Rockefeller Center’s Top of the Rock lifts visitors up on a beam above the safety glass around the edge of the building.
Called 'The Beam Experience', the attraction recreates the iconic 1932 black and white photograph 'Lunch atop a skyscraper'.
A souvenir photograph gives tourists a memorable image of their time in The Big Apple with a vista of the city uninterrupted behind them.
During the two-minute ride, people are only held to the beam by a small seatbelt, leaving people watching "scared" of falling to their death.
However, the attraction has attracted criticism, with some saying that it mocks the bravery of the men who took such risks to build the city.
