Originally slated to be installed in the lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York City, the fresco showed aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture.

However, after the New York World-Telegram complained about the piece, calling it "anti-capitalist propaganda", Rivera added images of Vladimir Lenin and a Soviet May Day parade in response.

[10] The writer Daniel Okrent states that a key event in Man at the Crossroad's conception occurred during a luncheon that Abby hosted in January 1932, at which Rivera was a guest.

[8] Rivera was given the theme "Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future",[5][12][7] since John wanted the painting to make people pause and think.

[14][13] According to Rivera's verbal description of the planned mural, the center panel would depict a person at the literal intersection of these two ideals (namely, the "man at the crossroads").

[19] Rivera did not agree with principal Rockefeller Center architect Raymond Hood's suggestion that the mural be commissioned exclusively in grayscale colors.

[6][17] He eventually acquiesced after Nelson convinced Hood to remove his grayscale requirement and allowed Rivera to paint Man at the Crossroads in a fresco format.

[17] According to Daniel Okrent, Rivera did not read the fine print of the contract that he signed, which stipulated that in exchange for the $21,000, Rockefeller Center Inc. would hold full ownership of Man at the Crossroads; this would lead to a controversy when the work was later removed from the RCA Building.

[27] Also in March 1933, Webster B. Todd, one of the contractors working on the construction of Rockefeller Center, requested sketches of Man at the Crossroads because he was concerned about the mural's potential controversial effect.

[28] Rivera's composition depicted many aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture, and as with his other paintings, contained influences from Communism.

Before him, a giant fist emerged holding an orb depicting the recombination of atoms and dividing cells in acts of chemical and biological generation.

[12] From the central figure four propeller-like shapes stretched to the corner of the composition, depicting arcs of light created by giant lenses anchoring the left and right edges of the space.

[15] Soldiers and war machinery occupied the top left above the society women, and a Russian May Day rally with red flags was seen at the right, above Lenin.

[32][24] For Rivera, this represented contrasting social visions: the "debauched rich" watched by the unemployed while war raged, and a socialist utopia ushered in by Lenin.

[14][12] For Rivera these represented the replacement of superstition by scientific mastery of nature, and the overthrow of authoritarian rule by liberated workers.

[13] The bottom part of the painting was to depict the controlled growth of natural resources, in the form of a variety of plants emerging from their roots, visible in a cut-away view under the soil.

[33] The Lenin portrait would still have gone unnoticed if not for a mistake made by workmen applying a final coat of paint to the wall above Rivera's mural.

[34][37] The portrait was the only thing about Man at the Crossroads that offended the Rockefeller family, despite the presence of other overtly Communist icons such as the hammer and sickle.

"[38] Daniel Okrent states that Rivera did not write the letter himself, instead leaving the task to Ben Shahn, the assistant most strongly opposed to Nelson's request to remove the Lenin portrait.

[46] On May 12, two days after the stop-work order was announced, Rivera was also dismissed from a commission at Chicago's Century of Progress exhibition, where he had been hired to paint a mural for General Motors' pavilion.

The artist John Sloan, the writer Lewis Mumford, and the photographer Alfred Stieglitz all showed support toward Rivera's position, while the Communist Party was stuck between endorsing a former member or his wealthy patron.

[50] In December 1933, Rockefeller Center developer John R. Todd proposed that Man at the Crossroads be moved to MoMA,[46][51] and suggested that Rivera could be re-hired to finish the mural.

[51] The destruction caused widespread controversy, with many artists vowing to boycott any future exhibitions or commissions at Rockefeller Center.

[53][51] Ralph Stackpole and Bernard Zakheim created paintings in which figures held up newspapers with headlines alluding to the Man at the Crossroads controversy.

[64] As for Rivera, Bertram Wolfe wrote that the artist commissioned paintings for movements that opposed the Rockefellers' "continued rule".

[65] After Man at the Crossroads was demolished, Brangwyn was asked to exclude Jesus Christ from his own mural in the RCA Building's lobby, which depicted the Sermon on the Mount.

[69] The mural, titled American Progress, depicts a vast allegorical scene of men constructing modern America, and contains figures of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[68][71] According to American Heritage magazine, the controversy influenced Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reaction to the idea of a Federal Art Project and similar New Deal-funded public art initiatives: “Commenting on the suggestion that the federal government should undertake a relief program for unemployed artists, Roosevelt expressed some misgiving: he didn't want, he told a friend in 1933, ‘a lot of young enthusiasts painting Lenin's head on the Justice Building.’“ The New Deal art programs were ultimately funded and persisted until the height of World War II, and in the end, “The New Deal administration did its best to give American artists easy rein, recognizing that freedom and originality are inseparable.

[3][73] In late 1933, Rivera went to Mexico City and persuaded the Mexican government to let him repaint the mural on a blank wall at the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Rather, Wolfe wrote, Rivera had been "looking for a public place where he could let men see what kind of painting it was that these 'patrons of the arts' had chosen to destroy".