New York City comes with many labels – “the city that never sleeps”, “modern and cosmopolitan”, “diverse and unique”. But what gave the city its distinctive reputation was the advent of skyscrapers in the 1920s. Nowhere in the world had such buildings existed before this.

But how did these buildings come up at a time when modern construction technologies were not available? The video above contains rare footage of the extremely dangerous and hazardous methods adopted by construction workers. Some dangled off scaffoldings without wearing protective gear, and others balanced off the edge of the buildings.

As the dizzying views reveal, the workers took enormous risks, with even a single mis-step likely to have sent them plunging hundreds of feet. Several workers fell to their deaths, while many were left injured and disabled. The skyscrapers, of course, live on.