Fifty years later, Philippe Petit remains a ‘man on the tightrope’

Fifty years ago this month, Philippe Petit defied gravity — and the police — by walking a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, braving the winds some 410 metres above the streets of Manhattan.

Petit, who turned 75 on Aug. 13, still possesses enviable balance, as was clear on a recent day when he climbed a simple metal ladder to reach a platform 20 feet above the ground. A wire stretched out before him. Grabbing a balance beam, he stepped into the air, walking gracefully as if he were on solid ground — pausing only occasionally to steady himself against the wire beneath his feet.

“People think that when you’re old you can’t do anything,” he said. “I think it’s the opposite. I think I’m more majestic, more in control, more beautiful to look at today at 74 than I was at 18.”

He was inside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine rehearsing before “Towering!!”, a show he performed there to commemorate the anniversary of his walk between the twin towers (suggested by the two exclamation points in the show’s title). The feat made Petit a national fascination. It took on a tragic dimension after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, destroyed the towers.

Since then, younger generations have learned about his achievement through the documentary “Man on Wire” (2008) and the children’s book “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.”

The cathedral, in upper Manhattan, is a special place for Petit: He has been an artist-in-residence there since 1980. The cathedral’s dean at the time, the Rev. James Parks Morton, granted Petit the title to avoid police arrest after an illicit tightrope walk in its 350-foot-long nave. Two years later, he walked across Amsterdam Avenue on the tightrope to the cathedral to inaugurate a new phase of construction. The site also has a personal resonance. The ashes of his daughter Gypsy, who died of a brain hemorrhage at age 9, are buried in the cathedral.

He said the new show was important to him on many levels and the connection with his daughter added another.

It wasn’t all tightrope walking, although Petit did do a 6-meter high walk inside the cathedral in front of a seated audience.

“Towering!!” is made up of 19 scenes evoking different points in the story of his 1974 walk. The musician Sting, a friend of Petit, also starred.

At one point, Petit took the microphone to correct some of the “embellishments” he had made to his story that added to the legend.

He also spoke of how he had hurt some friends after the success of his World Trade Center walk, particularly Jean-Louis Blondeau, who helped plan the feat, and cried in the documentary “Man on Wire” (2008) when discussing the decline of their close friendship after the walk.

“It’s important to me, after my whole life of lying a little bit about what happened,” he said. “Why not tell the truth?”

But above all, he wanted the audience of “Towering!!” to first see the magnificent space of the cathedral and then see him on top, walking in his sacred air.

Fifty years after the feat, he still wants to surprise the public.

“You will see a miracle,” he said days before the show. “A man dancing in the clouds.”