Philippe Petit

Petit conceived his "coup" when he was 18, when he first read about the proposed construction of the Twin Towers and saw drawings of the project in a magazine he read in 1968 while sitting at a dentist's office.[5] 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' planning. During this period, he learned everything he could about the buildings and their construction. In the same period, he began to perform high-wire walking at 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,[1] while priests were being ordained inside the building. In 1973, he walked a wire rigged between the two north pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.[6]

In planning for the Twin Towers walk, Petit had to learn how to accommodate issues such as the swaying of the high towers due to wind, which was part of their design; effects of wind and weather on the wire at that height, how to rig a 200 ft (61 m) steel cable across the 138 ft (42 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.[2] They had to bring heavy equipment to the rooftops. He traveled to New York on numerous occasions to make first-hand observations.[1]

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.[2] Two more collaborators, Jean François Heckel and Jean-Louis Blondeau, 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. Francis Brunn, a German juggler, provided financial support for the proposed project and its planning.[7]

Petit and his crew gained entry into the towers several times and hid in upper floors and on the roofs of the unfinished buildings to study security measures. They also analyzed the construction and identified places to anchor the wire and cavalletti. Using his own observations, drawings, and Moore's photographs, Petit constructed a scale model of the towers to design the needed rigging for the wire walk.

Working from the ID of an American who worked in the building, Petit made fake identification cards for himself and his collaborators (claiming 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 white-collar workers. 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.

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 19 steps below the roof. To pass the cable across the void, Petit and his crew had settled on using a bow and arrow attached to a rope. They had to practice this 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 (200 kg) 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 cavalletti (guy lines) to other points to stabilize the cable and keep the swaying of the wire to a minimum.[2]

Shortly after 7 am local time, Petit stepped out on the wire and started to perform. He was 1,350 feet (410 m) 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. He said later that he could hear their murmuring and cheers.

When New York Police Department and Port Authority of New York police officers learned of his stunt, they came up to the roofs of both buildings to try to persuade him to leave the wire. They threatened to pluck him off by helicopter.[2] Feeling that he had "trespassed long enough into these forbidden regions", Petit left the wire and surrendered to the police.[8]

There was extensive news coverage and public appreciation of Petit's high-wire walk. The district attorney dropped all formal charges of trespassing and other items relating to his walk[9] on condition that Petit give a free aerial show for children in Central Park. On Thursday, 29 August, he performed on a high-wire walk in the park above Belvedere Lake (now known as Turtle Pond).[10]

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.

Petit's high-wire walk is credited with bringing the Twin Towers much-needed attention and even affection, as they initially had been unpopular.[11][12] Critics such as historian Lewis Mumford had regarded them as ugly and utilitarian in design, and too large a development for the area. The Port Authority was having trouble renting out all of the office space.[11]

• Philippe Petit, Two towers, I walk, (New York: Reader's Digest, 1975), ASIN B00072LQRM
• Philippe Petit, Trois Coups, (Paris: Herscher, 1983). ISBN 2-7335-0062-7
• Philippe Petit, On The High Wire, Preface by Marcel Marceau, Postface by Werner Herzog (New York: Random House, 1985). ISBN 0-394-71573-X
• Philippe Petit, Funambule, (Paris: Albin Michel, 1991) ISBN 978-2-226-04123-4
• Philippe Petit, Traité du funambulisme, Preface by Paul Auster, (Arles: Actus Sud, 1997), ISBN 2-226-04123-0, (in French / en français)
• Philippe Petit, Über Mir Der Offene Himmel, (Stuttgart: Urachhaus, 1998) ISBN 978-3-8251-7209-1
• Philippe Petit, Trattato di Funambolismo, (Milano: Ponte Alle Grazie, 1999) ISBN 88-7928-450-9
• Philippe Petit, To Reach The Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between The Twin Towers, (New York, North Point Press, 2002). ASIN B000UDX0JA, ISBN 0-86547-651-9, OCLC 49351784
• Philippe Petit, L'Art du Pickpocket, (Arles: Actes Sud, 2006) ISBN 2-7427-6106-3
• Philippe Petit, Alcanzar las nubes, (Alpha Decay, Barcelona, 2007) ISBN 978-84-934868-9-1
• Philippe Petit, Man on Wire, (Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2008) ISBN 978-1-60239-332-5
• Philippe Petit, Why knot?: how to tie more than sixty ingenious, useful, beautiful, lifesaving, and secure knots!, (Abrams Image, New York, 2013) ISBN 978-1-4197-0676-9
• Philippe Petit, Creativity: The Perfect Crime, (Riverhead Hardcover, 2014) ISBN 978-1594631689
• Philippe Petit, On The High Wire Re-release, Preface by Marcel Marceau, Postface by Werner Herzog (New York: New Directions, 2019). ISBN 0811228649[22]

• Mordicai Gerstein, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers (Roaring Brook Press, 2003) ISBN 978-0-7613-1791-3
• David Chelsea, 9-11: Artists Respond feature entitled "He Walks on Air 110 Stories High" (DC Comics, 2002) ISBN 978-1-56389-881-5
• Ralph Keyes, Chancing It: Why We Take Risks (Little, Brown & Company, 1985) ISBN 0-316-49132-2
• Angus K. Gillespie, Twin Towers: the Life of New York City's World Trade Center (Rutgers University Press, 1999) ISBN 978-0-8135-2742-0
• James Glanz and Eric Lipton, City in the Sky (New York: Times Book, 2003) ISBN 0-8050-7691-3
• Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (New York: Random House, 2009) ISBN 978-0-8129-7399-0

• Rosenthal, Adam (1 September 2012). "Suspended Reading: Man on Wire, 9/11 and the Logic of the High-Wire." Screening the Past.
• Hager, Emily (12 August 2010). "Learning to Walk in the Slippers of a High-Wire Artist". New York Times. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
• Green, Penelope (21 September 2006). "A High-Wire Master Touches Down". New York Times. Retrieved 18 April 2008.
• Higginbotham, Adam (19 January 2003). "On top of the world". The Guardian. London.
• Lazarovic, Sarah (9 January 2002). "The Daredevil in the Clouds". The National Post. Archived from the original on 13 March 2012.
• Tomkins, Calvin (5 April 1999). "Onward and Upward with the Arts, "The Man Who Walk on Air"". The New Yorker.
• Mason, Anthony (3 February 2009). "The Great Feat Of Philippe Petit, CBS Evening News: Talking With The Man Who Walked The Twin Towers". CBS.
• Colbert, Stephen (27 January 2009). "Philippe Petit". Comedy Central.
• Langston, Bonnie (24 April 2009). "Still Working the Wire". Daily Freeman.
• Tucker, Reed (13 April 2008). "The Man Who Walked Between the Twin Towers Stars in a New Documentary on his High-Wire Act". New York Post.
• Heller, Sabine (10 May 2010). "Philippe Petit, Man On Wire: "I'm Afraid of Animals With Too Many Legs or No Legs at All"". Huffington Post.
• Grace, Lichtenstein (8 August 1974). "Stuntman, Eluding Guards, Walks a Tightrope Between Trade Center Towers". New York Times.
• "Not My Job: Philippe Petit". NPR. 7 February 2009.