Shortly after 7 a.m. on August 7, 1974, French performance artist Philippe Petit walked from the roof of the South Tower of the World Trade Center and stood on a one-inch-thick cable that stretched 140 feet to the North Tower.
With no safety net or harness, and only a balance bar to keep him company, one wrong step would mean a 1,360-foot drop and certain death.
“I was a little nervous on the first crossing because I never checked the strength of the anchor points on the other side,” Petit told The Post. “To be honest, it wasn’t the best, but it was good enough.”
Daring, dangerous and completely illegal, Petit’s wire walk has been called the “Artistic Crime of the Century” and was planned over years. Using covert surveillance and endless sleight of hand, Petit managed to smuggle a massive amount of equipment up to the 110th floor of the South Tower before his friend and collaborator Jean-Louis Blondeau used a bow and arrow to fire a cable into the North Tower.
He even chartered a helicopter to take aerial photographs of the rooftops of the Twin Towers.
Petit walked on the wire for 45 minutes, crossing it eight times, at one point even dancing and lying down on it.
Once that was done, Petit was promptly arrested.
He was released without charge on the condition that he perform a free show for children in Central Park.
A lot has happened since that Wednesday morning 50 years ago, most notably the destruction of the Twin Towers in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
On the morning of the attack, Petit, who has never owned a television, was called to a neighbor’s house in the Catskill Mountains and witnessed the horrific events. “They said, ‘Your tower is being destroyed.'”
“But I was only thinking about the thousands of lives lost, not the destruction of buildings,” he recalls.
He was also very upset about being in the Guinness World Records.
“My art is not defined by numbers or records, but the irony is that, like it or not, I was in that world unwittingly,” he said. “I never wanted to be in that world with people who can eat 10 slices of pizza in a minute.”
On August 7th and 8th, Petit will recreate the iconic walk through the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Street in his new show, “Towering!,” featuring a diverse cast of performers and a world-exclusive performance of new songs written especially for Petit by his friend Sting.
“It’s going to be the most beautiful, the most elaborate, the most powerful show of my life,” said the 74-year-old. “It’s going to be very moving.”
The exhibition is also an opportunity to correct many of the misconceptions people have about Petit’s work, especially in the United States.
“Here in America I’m called a daredevil or a stuntman – like an Evel Knievel or Harry Houdini on a motorbike – but that couldn’t be further from the truth. My art is not daredevil, it’s life-affirming.”
“I want to inspire people and make them believe they can move mountains. I want them to look up and not be afraid.”
“I am a poet of the sky.”
