Just after sunrise on August 8, 1974, a 24-year-old French street performer named Philippe Petit stepped out onto a steel cable strung between the rooftops of the Twin Towers in New York City. He had no harness. He had no net. He was 1,350 feet in the air, higher than any tightrope walker had ever stood, and below him the morning commuters in the streets of Manhattan looked like ants.
Philippe had been planning this for six years. He'd first seen a picture of the unfinished towers in a dentist's waiting room as a teenager and immediately tore out the page. He and a small team of friends snuck into the buildings dressed as construction workers, smuggled in 450 pounds of cable, and used a bow and arrow to shoot a fishing line from one tower to the other in the dark. By daybreak the cable was rigged. Then Philippe stepped out.
For 45 minutes he danced across the wire, lay down on his back, knelt and saluted the gathering crowd, even smiled at the police officers waiting to arrest him. He crossed the gap eight times. When he finally stepped off, the cheers were deafening. The judge dropped all the charges in exchange for a free performance for kids in Central Park. The Twin Towers are gone now, but Philippe's walk is remembered as one of the most beautiful, bonkers stunts in history, a tiny man making giants look graceful.
