Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Conversation begins at 9:40
Who were the men who built the Empire State Building? Glenn Kurtz (https://www.glennkurtz.com) returns to the show to tell their story with MEN AT WORK: The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen who Built It (Seven Stories Press, bookshop.org/a/4669/9781644215029 ). We talk about how he accidentally fell into this project, how "turn every page" led him to a key discovery about Lewis Hine's photos (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hine ) of the Empire State construction, how his experience researching and writing THREE MINUTES IN POLAND (bookshop.org/a/4669/9780374535797 ) helped him with this book, his childhood connection with the Empire State, and how identifying their subjects affects the mythic aura of Hine's photographs. We get into the corporate perspective of the building and how it dehumanizes the workers who built it, and similarly how that heroic collectivist notion of The Worker devalues workers as people, whether craftsmanship and artisanship survived the transition into mass production during the skyscraper era, Hine's authorial fallacy and the genius of his portraits, and what the Empire State says about the immigration-dynamics of the workforce and the role of unions, We also discuss the question of context and how the question, "What are we looking at?" can reveal the world, the resonance of Hine's Icarus/Sky Boy pic (nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/new-york-city/item/5587 ), the messiness of history, the joy of Virginia Woolf's diaries, why Glenn just wants to write a novel without it inspiring a nonfiction project, and more. Follow Glenn on Instagram (instagram.com/glennkurtz ) and Facebook (facebook.com/glennkurtz ) • More info at chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-664-glenn-kurtz • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Stripe (buy.stripe.com/dR603B83MbhS4XS3ce), Patreon (patreon.com/vmspod), or Paypal (paypal.me/vmspod), and subscribe to our e-newsletter, https://buttondown.email/vmspod
Conversation begins at 9:40
Who were the men who built the Empire State Building? Glenn Kurtz (https://www.glennkurtz.com) returns to the show to tell their story with MEN AT WORK: The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen who Built It (Seven Stories Press, bookshop.org/a/4669/9781644215029 ). We talk about how he accidentally fell into this project, how "turn every page" led him to a key discovery about Lewis Hine's photos (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hine ) of the Empire State construction, how his experience researching and writing THREE MINUTES IN POLAND (bookshop.org/a/4669/9780374535797 ) helped him with this book, his childhood connection with the Empire State, and how identifying their subjects affects the mythic aura of Hine's photographs. We get into the corporate perspective of the building and how it dehumanizes the workers who built it, and similarly how that heroic collectivist notion of The Worker devalues workers as people, whether craftsmanship and artisanship survived the transition into mass production during the skyscraper era, Hine's authorial fallacy and the genius of his portraits, and what the Empire State says about the immigration-dynamics of the workforce and the role of unions, We also discuss the question of context and how the question, "What are we looking at?" can reveal the world, the resonance of Hine's Icarus/Sky Boy pic (nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/new-york-city/item/5587 ), the messiness of history, the joy of Virginia Woolf's diaries, why Glenn just wants to write a novel without it inspiring a nonfiction project, and more. Follow Glenn on Instagram (instagram.com/glennkurtz ) and Facebook (facebook.com/glennkurtz ) • More info at chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-664-glenn-kurtz • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Stripe (buy.stripe.com/dR603B83MbhS4XS3ce), Patreon (patreon.com/vmspod), or Paypal (paypal.me/vmspod), and subscribe to our e-newsletter, https://buttondown.email/vmspod
