Ron Howard is making a movie about this… . I remember seeing Phillipes signature on the beam from the observation deck of the north tower roof… sad 😔 Ill never get to see it again.... World Trade Center walk... Petits most famous performance was in August 1974, conducted on a wire between the roofs of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, a quarter mile above the ground. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire, during which he walked, danced, lay down on the wire, and saluted watchers from a kneeling position. Office workers, construction crews and policemen cheered him on. Planning Petit conceived his coup when he was 17, when he first read about proposed construction of the Twin Towers and saw drawings of the project in a magazine, which he read while sitting at a dentists office in 1968. Petit was seized by the idea of performing there, and began collecting articles on the Towers whenever he could. What was called the artistic crime of the century took Petit six years of planning, during which he learned everything he could about the buildings and their construction. In the same period, he began to perform high wire walking in other famous places. Rigging his wire secretly, he performed as a combination of circus act and public display. In 1971 he performed his first such walk between the towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, while inside, priests were being ordained. In 1973 he walked a wire rigged between the two north pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, in Sydney, Australia. In planning for the Twin Towers, Petit had to learn how to accommodate such issues as the swaying of the high towers because of wind, part of their design; effects of wind and weather on the wire at that height, determine how to rig a steel cable across the 200 ft (61 m) gap between the towers (at a height of 1,368 ft (417 m)), and how to gain entry with his collaborators, first to scope out the conditions and lastly, to stage the project. They had to get heavy equipment to the rooftops. He traveled to New York on numerous occasions to make first-hand observations. Since the towers were still under construction, Petit and one of his collaborators, New York-based photographer Jim Moore, rented a helicopter to take aerial photographs of the buildings. Friends Jean-François and Jean-Louis helped him practice in a field in France, and accompanied him to take part in the final rigging of the project, as well as to photograph it. His friend Francis Brunn, a German juggler, provided financial support for the proposed project and its planning. Petit and his crew gained entry into the towers several times, and hid in upper floors and on the roofs of the unfinished buildings in order to study security measures, in addition to analyzing the construction and identifying places to anchor the wire and cavalletti. Using his own observations, drawings, and Moores photographs, Petit constructed a scale model of the towers in order to design the needed rigging to prepare for the wire walk. Working from an ID of an American who worked in the building, Petit made fake identification cards for himself and his collaborators (claiming that they were contractors who were installing an electrified fence on the roof) to gain access to the buildings. Prior to this, Petit had carefully observed the clothes worn by construction workers and the kinds of tools they carried. He also took note of the clothing of office workers so that some of his collaborators could pose as professional men. He observed what time the workers arrived and left, so he could determine when he would have roof access. As the target date of his coup approached, he claimed to be a journalist with Metropolis, a French architecture magazine, so that he could gain permission to interview the workers on the roof. The Port Authority allowed Petit to conduct the interviews, which he used as a pretext to make more observations. He was once caught by a police officer on the roof, and his hopes to do the high-wire walk were dampened. He eventually regained the confidence to proceed. On the night of Tuesday, 6 August 1974, Petit and his crew had a lucky break and got a ride in a freight elevator to the 104th floor with their equipment. They stored it just nineteen steps below the roof. In order to pass the cable across the void, Petit and his crew had settled on using a bow and arrow, with line attached to larger lines, which they had practiced many times to perfect their technique. They first shot across a fishing line, which was attached to larger ropes, and finally to the 450-pound steel cable. The team was delayed when the heavy cable sank too fast, and had to be pulled up manually for hours. Petit had already identified points at which to anchor two tiranti (guy lines) to other points to stabilize the cable and keep its swaying of the wire to a minimum. Event Shortly after 7 am, Petit stepped out on the wire and started to perform. He was 1350 feet, a quarter mile, above the ground. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire, during which he walked, danced, lay down on the wire, and knelt to salute watchers. Crowds gathered on the streets below, and he said later he could hear their murmuring and cheers. When police and Port Authority officers learned of his stunt, they came up to the roofs of both buildings to try to persuade him to get off the wire. They threatened to pluck him off by helicopter. Aftermath There was extensive news coverage and public appreciation of Petits high-wire walk; the district attorney dropped all formal charges of trespassing and other items relating to his walk. In exchange, he was required to give a free aerial show for children in Central Park. He performed on a high-wire walk in the Park above Belvedere Lake (known now as Turtle Pond). The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey gave Petit a lifetime pass to the Twin Towers Observation Deck. -He autographed a steel beam close to the point where he began his walk.-
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 02:08:11 +0000
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