1929 Footage Of Men With No Safety Gear Working On The Chrysler Building

February 17, 2020

New York's Chrysler Building, one of the city's most iconic skyscrapers, was built in a remarkably short time -- foundation work began in November 1928, and the building officially opened in May 1930.

Even more remarkably, the steelwork went up in just six months in the summer of 1929 at an average rate of four floors a week.

Fox Movietone's sound cameras visited the construction site several times in 1929 and 1930. The footage show construction workers standing and sitting on steal beams 1,000 feet in the air without any safety equipment.

The Chrysler Building had 3,000 workers and no one died during construction.

Here's the footage.