Artist-in-residence
In this August 7, 1974, file photo, Philippe Petit, a French highwire artist, walks across a tightrope suspended between the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York. Petit and his companions surreptitiously strung a wire between New York City’s recently constructed World Trade Towers on August 6, 1974, and Petit walked across it the next day. He danced, strutted and clowned around for 45 minutes as startled bystanders watched from 110 stories below. Photo: Alan Welner/AP
[Episcopal News Service] Fifty years ago, on the morning of August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit, a French highwire artist, made history when he wire-walked on a 131-foot cable, 1,350 feet above the ground between the World Trade Centers’ Twin Towers in New York City.
The illicit walk took 45 minutes and Petit, who turns 75 next week, was arrested for disorderly conduct and criminal trespass, but today his act is remembered fondly, including as part of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum’s historical exhibition.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Petit’s Twin Towers’ walk, Petit will stage “Towering!!” at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on August 7 and 8 at 8:30 pm Eastern. He will wire-walk—also known as tightrope walking—across the cathedral’s nave, this time joined by fellow performance artists, including musicians, actors and dancers. They will perform a series of 19 short scenes conceived and directed by Petit.
Grammy Award-winning musician Sting, a friend of Petit, will perform original music for the event. A short film by James Marsh, who directed “Man on Wire,” the Academy Award-winning documentary about Petit’s Twin Towers’ wire-walk, will be screened.
Petit and St. John the Divine have had a longstanding relationship. In 1980, Petit was arrested again for wire-walking across the cathedral’s 601-foot-long nave, 20 feet above the ground. As police were taking him away in handcuffs, the cathedral’s dean at the time, The Very Rev’d James Parks Morton, requested Petit’s release and shortly after named him artist-in-residence, a title Petit still holds.
Petit’s relationship with the cathedral also is personal. The ashes of his daughter, Cordia Gypsy, who died in 1992 at 13 of a cerebral brain hemorrhage, are interred in the cathedral’s columbarium. Morton led her funeral service.
When Morton retired at the end of 1996, Petit performed “Crescendo,” an aerial tribute on the cathedral’s close.
“A steel cable with a human being on it does not belong in a church. But this is not a daredevil act,” Petit said in a January 1997 interview with the Associated Press. “It is an act of poetry and art that reflects what a living cathedral should be.”
Shortly after his 1974 arrest, Petit received a lifetime pass to the World Trade Center’s observation deck in exchange for giving a free aerial show for children in Central Park. Petit’s Twin Towers’ aerial act also earned him a Guinness World Record for the highest tightrope walk without the use of a net or other type of safety tether. His record remained unbroken until 2015, when a man walked between two mountain peaks in Switzerland.
The Twin Towers weren’t Petit’s first, unauthorized high-profile act. In 1971, Petit juggled balls while he wire-walked between the two towers of Notre-Dame de Paris. Two years later, he wire-walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia.
“If I see three oranges, I have to juggle. And if I see two towers, I have to walk,” Petit told the New York Times after his walk between the Twin Towers.
Petit continues to wire-walk worldwide without any safety devices. In 1989, by invitation from then-Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, Petit walked an inclined wire across the Seine between the Place du Trocadéro and the second level of the Eiffel Tower.
Petit has been the subject of numerous books, songs and films, including the 2015 biopic movie “The Walk,” directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit.
Tickets for “Towering!!!” are available for purchase on St. John the Divine’s website. Proceeds from “Towering!!” will benefit St. John the Divine’s community programs, the cathedral, and preservation of Petit’s archives.
“My heart is here, my life is here,” Petit said about St. John the Divine to the Associated Press in the same 1997 interview. “It is my precious place.”
“Towering!!” is open to anyone age 6 or older.
—Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.