Man on Wire
 

Has anyone seen this documentary? This is the most incredible thing I've ever seen.

Phillipe Petite is a care-free Frenchman going about his business doing juggling and magic tricks and some tight rope walking in the town square. He gets bolder and bolder and ends up stringing a cable across a couple of bridge stanchions in Australia and then walking across them during rush hour.

Well, he sees an artist's rendition of the World Trade Center towers and from that minute on, he's obsessed with walking between them. Even before they were built he was visuallizing the feat. He plans for three years on how to not only get all his gear up to the 104th floor, but how to get a wire across the 200 feet between the towers and anchoring it securely.

Then, with security ready to stop him at any time, he finally gets his wire strung and spends 45 minutes!!! out in the middle of the towers with 1,100 feet of nothing between him and the concrete below.

It's amazing. They arrest him and charge him with trespassing. The ticket actually said "Man on Wire". The judge "sentenced" him to perform a magic show for some kids as punishment. He lives in New York now near Woodstock.

Interesting bit of history...that can never be repeated. Thanks for the post.

I keep meaning to watch that on Netflix. Looks interesting. I was always amazed at his stunts when I was a kid.

Yes. Great documentary. On Apple TV if you have it.

Yes. people should watch that one it is very good.

People should not watch "Dive"

I have no idea what makes some people tick.

Lookin' forward to Sammyg2's comment! :D

Trailer

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5 min scene
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News report from the day.

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There's also a children's book: "The man who walked between the towers." A nice change from the rest of the vapid PC crap in the library these days. It's well illustrated as well.

It seemed to me like Phillipe Petite "peaked" at just the exact moment in time to pull off the feat. I mean he had been planning and working his plan for a couple of years. Then after narrowly avoiding the gaurds and finally getting the wire in place just after dawn, he stepped out onto the wire and stayed out there for 45 minutes. There may not ever be another man that, put in that situation, at a precise moment in time who is mentally and physically prepared for what he did. The towers weren't completely in operation or occupied at the time, so that helped him get his gear installed.

He traversed the wire 8 times!! He acutally layed down on the wire at one point. I get dizzy climbing up and down these towers at the various refineries I work at and they have caged ladders and are typically only a couple hundred feet tall.

This guy was on a 1/2" cable 1,100 feet up! How can this ever be duplicated? Will someone build two towers ever again this high and close together?