Road Improvements
“A Very Different Twin
Towers Story"
By Mark Matteson
On the morning of August 7, 1974, it was the summer before
my senior year of high school. I was 16 years old. (You
remember? It was the summer of Jaws, the movie.) Across the
Atlantic, a unique kind of criminal mind had a plan for the
Twin Towers and he successfully carried out his secret
scheme. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to
1968, when the idea was planted in his mind. He had seen an
architect’s sketch of building in a Parisian Magazine and
began planning his assault on the New York Skyscrapers,
years before they were even built. He tore the magazine
article out and made some notes, then tossed the article in
a box marked with a single word, “Project.” He was a daring
and devious 19 year old European man when he hatched the
plan. He invested six long years in the planning.
With the patience of a Swiss watch repairman, he visited NYC
secretly. He managed to escape the guards and other official
looking people by looking very official himself. He went out
onto the roof. He took pictures from every angle. He
developed a secret relationship with a man who worked on the
82nd floor who would later help him successfully execute his
plan. Then he returned to Paris. Over the next four years
there was more planning, calculations, thought, and energy,
all in secret. He left no stone unturned. He did his
homework.
On May 13, 1974, he returned to NYC and studied the building
mentally planning every step. He visualized hundreds of
times in his mind a successful outcome. He even hired a
helicopter and flew over the towers, hovering 500 feet above
to better understand his mission. When he asked the pilot to
fly between the giant pylons, the pilot refused citing the
tricky winds and uncertainty of the distance between the
buildings.
On the morning of August 7, 1974 the fateful day finally
came. Everything went according to plan. It took him
approximately 45 minutes to complete his mission. The police
were waiting for him and he was arrested on the spot.
His mission?
To walk across the Twin Towers on a cable without a safety
net or wire;
Yes, he was a high-wire tight rope daredevil. His name?
Philippe Petit.
His “sentence” was interesting…he was to perform for the
children in Central Park. He became a worldwide media
sensation overnight.
You can read about it in his book, “To Reach the Clouds.”
You see it’s not money or fame Philippe sought, rather it
was an ideal of perfection. In his own words:
When you are full of fire, you can move mountains. When
you give everything to your art, you become transformed.
I’ll never have money in a box, because I want to do things,
to start a perfect circus, with only supreme artists fro a
troupe. To walk Niagara Falls but not like before, this
time, directly over the falls, a mile and more. To suspend a
cable to the top of the Eiffel Tower and walk up it at a 45
degree angle, that is perfection.
I miss the Twin Towers. I watched helicopters fly by from
the observation deck in 1992 with my electrician friend Arty
Conner from Long Island. It was a magical moment in time.
Then again, so was the summer of 1974.
I think I’ll rent Jaws again…it was a perfect movie by a
perfect young director, Steven Spielberg.
Did you know?
Did you know that both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the forth of
July in 1826.
The forth of July is also at the whim of the calendar. Most other
national holidays have been moved and changed to allow for a three day
weekend. I'm pretty sure the "4th of July" will always be celebrated on
the 4th of July.
Which future Presidents signed the Declaration of Independence?
Not George Washington but John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
Which signer of the Declaration of Independence was a failure as a
brewer?
Sam Adams, cousin of the second President John Adams. His name sake
seems to doing just fine in the brewery business a few hundred years
later.
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