Constructing the Empire State Building, New York, 1931.

Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940) used his photography as a documentary tool to inspire social reform. He photographed New York for about thirty years, concentrating on three separate but related areas: the European immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, the Lower East side and the Empire State Building, for which he was the official photographer. This photograph is from that series, taken during construction. Collectively his photographs are a record of a changing city, in which he remains committed to the human figure within the urban landscape.