Philippe Petit

Man on Wire Philippe Petit

More than a quarter-century before September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center was immortalized by an act of unprecedented daring and beauty. In August 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit boldly and illegally fixed a rope between the tops of the still-young Twin Towers, a quarter mile off the ground. At daybreak, thousands of spectators gathered to watch in awe and adulation as he traversed the rope a full eight times in the course of an hour. In "Man on Wire," Petit recounts the six years he spent preparing for this achievement. It is a fitting tribute to those lost, but not forgotten, symbols of human aspiration the Twin Towers.

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