New high or mild thrill? Recreating Lunch atop a Skyscraper

Looked at in a certain way, one of history's most famous photographs is rather dull. It's a bunch of men, sitting in a line. Some are holding lunchboxes, one is lighting a cigarette, another is holding a glass bottle. No one is planking or pulling a funny face.

- Adam Gabbatt

But, the remarkable thing about Lunch atop a Skyscraper, which has inspired a new ride above the Rockefeller Center, is the men are sitting on a metal construction beam about 260 meters above the streets of New York City without safety equipment.

It's that death-defying aspect that the Rockefeller Center's new ridecum-photo opportunity, Top of the Rock: The Beam, is hoping to re-create.

Billed as the area's "premier new attraction", the Beam allows people to sit on a big metal beam and be raised into the air so that it looks a bit like the scene in Lunch atop a Skyscraper.

The thing is, there is no soaring 260 metres above NYC. The Beam, on the outdoor deck of 30 Rockefeller's 69th floor, is raised by a hydraulic pump to 3.5 meters above the deck. It doesn't make for an exhilarating ride unless you're afraid of heights.

I am afraid of heights.