A True High-wire Experience
March 12th, 2009
The linked article details the story of Phillipe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the World Trade Center towers in New York. It took quite a bit of planning and deception. Among other things, he smuggled a 450-pound steel cable to the top of one tower. To string the wire, they used a bow and arrow with fishing line attached, then sent across progressively larger ropes. One witness said Petit was jumping up and down—that his feet were actually leaving the wire. That’s pretty impressive considering a fall would have been fatal.
