It's entirely the real deal. From the photographer, Barry Levine:
"Barry: I said, "Hey, let's go shooting on top of the Empire State Building." We were doing some photo shooting all around town in New York and we had cleared it with Empire State Building, but we didn't reckon on going a level above. We just thought we were going to shoot it on that level that everyone attends. Then the managers of the building said "you know that there is one more level above that's a private level". We went up there and it had a very little ledge. It was a thin ledge, but if you fall over you fall like maybe five feet to another ledge, a wide ledge. But because of the perspective I was shooting, it didn't look like that. It looked like we where right on the very edge and because it was an overcast day I wanted a colour shot that was very monotone, cause they had black and white and that's what I got. It's colour but it looks monotone. I had two of their bodyguards hoist me up on their shoulders so I could shoot from that perspective. We had very little room to shoot. That was my favorite photo of all time."