Petit Walks the Wire Between the Twin Towers

Just after 8 a.m. on August 7, 1974, French high-wire artist Philippe Petit stepped onto a 450-pound steel cable he and his crew had rigged overnight between the roofs of the still-unfinished Twin Towers, using a bow and arrow to fire a fishing line across the gap first. He was 24, with no net and no permit, and he stayed up there for 45 minutes, crossing the wire eight times, kneeling to salute the crowd gathering on the sidewalks below and even lying down on the cable. Police and Port Authority officers arrived on both rooftops and threatened to pluck him off by helicopter, but Petit only came down when rain made the wire too dangerous to hold. What was really at stake was who got to claim the towers, two office blocks New Yorkers had mostly mocked as oversized and soulless, and for 45 minutes a street performer with a wire and a plan owned them completely.