In 1974, a sprightly Frenchman made global headlines and captivated gawking New Yorkers when he walked a high wire suspended between the World Trade Center’s twin towers, a tiny dot teetering some 1,350 feet in the air. Though the death-defying stunt got Philippe Petit arrested, he quickly became a global fascination. (The feat took on a poignant tone when the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, destroyed the towers.) Since then, a best-selling novel, Oscar-winning documentary, and children’s book have been published about his daredevil act. And to celebrate its anniversary, Petit, now 74, recently staged a never-before-seen performance called Towering!! at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Upper Manhattan.
Petit is intimately familiar with the cathedral—he has been an artist in residence there since 1980, when its then-dean granted him the title to prevent police from arresting him yet again for another illicit stunt. Though he walked a 20-foot-high wire inside, there’s more to Towering!! than tightropes. Petit created 19 scenes evocative of the legend surrounding his 1974 walk, and there’s also a performance by the musician Sting, his close friend. Apropos of the religious setting, he also “confessed” and set the record straight about some half-truths that he embellished about his feat.
Most importantly, though, Petit wants onlookers to get the up-close-and-personal look that eluded them for so long, when they gazed upward and tried to figure out what exactly was motivating the small dot in the sky to walk on air. “You don’t see my face, you don’t see my expression, you don’t see my hands, you don’t see my feet,” Petit told the New York Times. “I have been a dot in the sky in New York. It’s a nice thing for New Yorkers to have a vision of the twin towers walk where you can see what I’m doing—‘Oh, my god, he’s smiling.’” Talk about a highwire act.
