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Life On A High Wire

“I observed the tightrope 'dancer'—because you couldn't call him a 'walker'—approximately halfway between the two towers. Upon seeing us, he started to smile and laugh, and started a dancing routine on the high wire.... And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire, but instead, he turned around and ran back out into the middle.... He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again.... Unbelievable really.... Everybody was spellbound in the watching of it.” – Sgt. Charles Daniels, New York Port Authority Police Department, August 7, 1974

Philippe Petit literally had his head in the clouds, 104 stories or 1,350 feet above the ground, on a wire ¾ of an inch in width. He was a quarter mile into the sky, with the hard and unforgiving concrete of New York City beneath him, on a wire that ran 130 feet between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, and he danced. Traffic stopped, thousands of hardened Big Apple residents stood spellbound and stared at this Frenchman, who gracefully moved across a thin cable. On that early morning, he crisscrossed that thin piece of bundled steel eight times, sat on it, smiled, did deep knee bends, laughed, leaped up and down, laid down on it, and did all sorts of tricks. He even conversed with a sea gull that circled his head as police tried to get him to come in. For forty-five minutes of joy, until the rain forced him to come in, he stood over the abyss and danced.

For most of us, such a walk would be terrifying. Feet unsure. Knees wobbly. Balance nonexistent. Suffocating fear. Feeling the slightest gush of wind could knock us off our perch. The swaying of the wire. Our heart thumping a mile a minute. Deep breathes in, deep breathes out. Sweat. Hesitation. One wrong step, one wrong move. Most of us would never go out there. And he danced. He danced.

Philippe Petit learned to dance on a wire out of desperation. At the age of sixteen he found himself on the streets, after getting kicked out of five schools in a year. As a child he loved magic and juggling. As a teenager, he was a busker, and walking on a wire was his way of capturing the public’s eye. He did all the traditional moves and routines of a circus performer from jumping through a hoop to riding a unicycle, but the moves were not graceful, the moves were not his. Within months, he discarded traditional ways of interacting with the wire and introduced movements he learned from fencing, rock-climbing, bull fighting, and other places, moves that felt more naturally to him. He created art on and above the streets and parks of Paris.

After years of practicing, missteps, mistakes and performing he took his act higher; first to the small sea-side town of Vallauris, where he performed for the 90-year-old painter Pablo Picasso’s birthday, then to Notre Dame Cathedral, where he walked between the two bell towers, and then half way across the world to Australia where he walked above the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

His dream of walking between the Twin Towers was born six years before he ever attempted it, when he sat in his dentist’s office reading a magazine article about the soon to be built World Trade Center. Smuggling the magazine pages out of the office, he had to suffer with a tooth ache for several more weeks because the buildings captured his imagination so much. He absorbed everything he could about them, from how they swayed with the wind, to where would be the best locations to rig his steel wire. He made numerous visits to the buildings and even took aerial photographs from a helicopter. Several times he hid in the building, so he could spend the night, to get a sense of the building’s security and the weather conditions. He often pretended to be a construction worker and, on at least one occasion, pretended to be a journalist, so he could interview the craftsmen working on it, and Port Authority executive Guy Tozzoli, to mine their knowledge. The venture was almost derailed when he was nabbed by a police officer while standing on the roof during one of his last scouting expeditions. He even built a scale model of what he had learned about the building. After perfecting his high wire skills, he made his final trip to Manhattan.

Armed with 250 feet of braided steel cable, a bow and arrow, a disassembled balancing pole, and bracing equipment, on the night of Tuesday, August 6, two of his friends and him slipped into the South Tower and made their way up to the roof. Firing the arrow, with fishing line attached to it, to two other colleagues waiting on the roof of the North Tower, then attaching larger and larger pieces of rope to the line until the line was strong enough to support the weight of the 450 pound steel cable. It took most of the night to get the line across, stabilize, and anchor it. Everyone else in the group was exhausted before Wirewalker ever stepped on the line.

While several officers thought Petit must have been crazy, dancing on a wire like that, it was only when the rain began to fall that he decided it was time to come in. Handcuffed and taken to jail, it looked like the Frenchman was going to do major jail time. Yet, something strange happened. The city embraced the street performer. In exchange for dropping charges against him, Petit agreed to put on a free show for children at the Park above Belvedere Lake (now Turtle Pond). The Port Authority in a public ceremony gave him a lifetime pass to the Twin Towers’ Observation Deck. With photographers looking on he put his signature on a steel beam close to where he tethered his line. More importantly, he brought affection to the World Trade Center, which most people had seen as ugly and utilitarian. A structure that was having trouble finding tenants was soon over flowing with requests. The buildings were now endearing to not just New Yorkers, but the world. All of this happened because a gentleman danced in the clouds.

The world watched the World Trade Center disappear on September 11^th, 2001. Philippe Petit is an old man who has not made a major walk since the year after the Towers crumbled, when he returned to New York to perform for David Letterman. Yet, the magic he performed in 1974 is still is a part of our culture and will outlast him. I have to ask myself, why did he dance? Dance so far above the earth? Dance in the midst of such danger? Dance with such joy, when it was so easy to fall?

Have you ever danced like that? Life is not for the faint of heart. It is a series of risks and looking into the void as you walk on your tight rope. It can scare you to death. Financial disasters, health problems, job pressures, family, there are moments in life when it feels like the ground is going to open up underneath you. Heck, walk out the wrong door, make the wrong turn, and things can fall apart right before your eyes. It is easy to see why some people do not even attempt the walk, avoid risks, or don’t take the chances that make life so wonderful. They don’t make the journey, let alone smile and dance. For many, life is ugly, not a piece of art. Too many will trip over their own feet, slip and fall, pop a pill, drink too much, get grouchy, get mean, get selfish, or get possessive. Most of us will do anything but enjoy the journey.

A lot can be learned from Philippe Petit’s dance on a wire. What looked like a few moments of careless joy took years of hard work to achieve. He had to learn to do what felt natural for him. He did not do it by himself. He had the help of friends. He found his own way. When you are able to do that dance, walk the tightrope of life with a smile on your face, the results are always greater than you could ever imagine. Here is to your walk.