January 13, 2004
The Man Who Walked Between The Towers
A children's book about tight rope artist Philippe Petit's 1974 walk between the towers of the World Trade Center won the Caldecott Medal. The Caldecott, if you remember from when you had trips to the school library (now media center; what gives?), is the award for the best American picture book. Mordicai Gerstein wrote and illustrated, The Man Who Walked Between The Towers, right after September 11, 2001 according to a Times article. More illustrations from The Man Who... It looks lovely, and Gothamist is going to buy it right now; buy from Amazon.
The feat was actually illegal, in keeping with Petit's illegal traversing of Notre Dame and Sydney's Harbor bridge. According to PBS's American Experience page about this, Petit became a folk hero and formal charges were dropped, though he was "sentenced" to perform for children at Central Park. The Port Authority later gave him a lifetime pass to the WTC observation deck, where he signed his name on a beam there. Petit wrote a book, To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers, that came out in 2002. More about the book at the publisher's website or buy it at Amazon (it has tons of photographs).
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Mordicai was on the today show this morning.
The drawings were very impressive with amazing perspective.
another interesting philippe petit fact: in the early 1970s, paul auster was living in france and witnessed petit setting up his famous notre dame tower walk. they became good friends, and a few years later, auster translated and wrote the introduction for petit's famous book "on the high wire". i found this quote from an article on auster:
"In deliberating a universe of cruel chance, Auster has expressed admiration for the high-wire artist Philippe Petit and has translated On The High Wire, a kind of manifesto of Petit's art. High wire walking is not as might be thought an art of death but an art of life, of life lived to its extreme possibilities – life which is unafraid and uncompromising in its confrontation/relationship with death. On each occasion that Petit performs he takes life and lives it in all its exhilarating immediacy. Petit's aesthetic is an exemplary quest, a search for a type of perfection, as Auster says, "...anyone who has ever made personal sacrifices for an art or an idea will have no trouble understanding what it is about". In essence one might conjecture that this constitutes the fundamentals of art – useless, beautiful, extraordinary but somehow life enhancing."
oh, and of course, petit was one of my idols when i was a juggler- he represented everything elegant that i saw in the art. of course, i never got past five.
I remember when this guy did the high wire act. (I think I was nine or ten). At first, everyone said he was a nut. Only weeks or months later, did he become the daring guy that crossed the twin towers on a tightrope.
Same thing with the fella who used suction cups to climb up it in 1977(?). It only became glamorized later.
People miss those buildings, but when they first went up, they were seen as a controversial government works project. The two acrobats helped to humanize the structures in the eyes of the general public.
no doubt, Philippe Petit rocks.
I've always been more of an Owen Quinn fan.
Our class read the book and loved it, but when we tried to go on line and research it we did not find a lot!! It was such a great book but our class wants more info!!
I read this book in class. It was amazing. I cant belive he actually laid on the rope.