Good morning. It's Thursday. This morning we'll find out where Philippe Petit, who walked on a wire between towers of the World Trade Center in 1974, plans to stroll next week. We'll also find out why Mayor Eric Adams says New York City is "back from the brink."
The man who walks on air had a down-to-earth worry about a word. "Do I pronounce it right — how would you say 'ribbons'?" Philippe Petit asked in his rapid-fire, French-accented English. Petit is the high-wire artist who became world famous with a heart-stopping promenade between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. Next week he will set up a wire and sashay across the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, threading his way through a textile installation — long, colorful ribbons dangling from the ceiling in the nave. (His pronunciation was fine.) The cathedral is familiar territory for Petit: He has walked across the 601-foot-long nave at least twice. The first time, the police came to arrest him. He has said that the dean of the cathedral at the time, the Rev. James Parks Morton, took the handcuffs off. Morton also gave him a title he still holds proudly: artist in residence. Petit once said his duties included changing the bulbs in the chandeliers, because only he had the nerve to climb high enough to reach them. But he has also helped to celebrate milestones at the cathedral, as he did in 1982, when he carried a silver trowel 150 feet above Amsterdam Avenue outside the huge Gothic Revival landmark to show that construction was beginning again after a 41-year lapse. This time, he said, "the cathedral called me and said, 'We have a beautiful hanging sculpture — would you do something with it?'" The performance, "The Ribbon Walk," is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. on Feb. 1. He said that he envisioned walking through the ribbons and seeing them ripple around him, as if he were a boat on a calm lake. "I will wake up the ribbons," he said. There is a lot to wake up: some 16 miles of fabric. He said he had asked Anne Patterson — the artist who designed the installation, "Divine Pathways" — to put the 75-foot-long ribbons so they were "not too low and not too high." She and her riggers complied: The ribbons do not stretch all the way to the stone floor of the cathedral. They stop about 20 feet up. Petit plans to set up masts that are slightly taller than that, one on each side of the nave, and stretch his wire between the masts. The idea is that when he walks into the thicket of ribbons, the upper part of his body and his balancing pole will set the ribbons into motion. Petit said that Patterson was making a costume for him, a suit with yet more ribbons. Petit has been making detailed preparations. He pulled out a thick black notebook filled with drawings and measurements, even a cutout he had used to size the truck needed to deliver the masts, and said he would do a couple of crossings once the masts were up and the wire was in place.
He will not be nearly as far off the ground as he was at the twin towers, but he said he needed to feel the ribbons. The sensation will be different from walking in the open air a quarter-mile up. Petit has done more than 90 high-wire walks since he was a teenager and taught himself to ambulate above the rest of the world. Now 74, he said he did not believe in age: "The idea of retiring is foreign to me." His skills have not declined, he said, adding, "I have never been in my entire life as solid on the wire as I am today." "I am always like a kid," he said. "I am always so excited. Why? Because when I grab the pole and I start gliding on the wire, finally life is beautiful, life is beautiful and life is safe, which will make people look up and say: 'Are you crazy? You are, you know, thousands of feet in the air. You call that safe?' But yes, it's safe, because I cannot have left a single technical detail to chance."
WEATHER Prepare for rain and fog, persisting through the evening, with temperatures in the low 50s dropping to the mid-40s at night. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Feb. 9 (Lunar New Year's Eve). The latest Metro news
We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. 'Back from the brink'
Mayor Eric Adams delivered his State of the City speech on Wednesday. Our colleague Emma G. Fitzsimmons says it was a rah-rah overview of his tenure. He played down the migrant crisis, which he said last September would "destroy New York City." On Wednesday, he said that "the state of our city is strong, far stronger than it was two years ago." He also said New York was "back from the brink." Adams acknowledged the need to address the related problems of affordability and a housing crisis. He announced a new "tenant protection cabinet" to help keep New Yorkers in their homes and said that a "homeowner help desk" would be expanded. He also outlined a plan to build 24 affordable housing projects on city-owned properties. He called for a new Department of Sustainable Delivery to "regulate new forms of delivery transit and ensure their safety," noting the rise of e-bikes and other motorized forms of transportation used by delivery workers. He said it would be a first-in-the-nation agency that would combine work now handled by several agencies and would set "goals and guidelines on everything from traffic safety to corporate accountability." He said the department would also work to enforce safety standards for the lithium-ion batteries that power e-bikes and scooters and have been blamed for fires, particularly involving batteries that have been tampered with. The speech felt like a campaign rally for Adams, a Democrat who is gearing up to seek re-election next year. As his approval rating has fallen sharply in recent months, more Democrats have signaled that they were considering entering the race. As he spoke to an auditorium filled with cheering union workers, a crowd of protesters gathered outside to call on Adams to close the Rikers Island jail complex, as he is legally required to by 2027. They also took issue with budget cuts that would affect the city's libraries, schools and public housing. Despite the mayor's cheerful tone, he faces daunting hurdles this year. A federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising is continuing. Leaders in the City Council have threatened to override his veto of two bills that seek to document police stops and end solitary confinement in city jails. Also on the horizon is a battle with state lawmakers over extending mayoral control of schools. METROPOLITAN DIARY Pink roses
Dear Diary: I woke up early on a September Sunday somewhat grumpy for reasons I cannot remember. As I skulked through Carroll Gardens doing my errands for the day, the nice weather lifted my spirits slightly. My last stop was a flower shop for something to bring home to my partner. Later, walking down my block with the bunch of pink roses I had picked out, I heard a man say: "Wow! ¡Qué lindo!" I turned and saw my barber and his buddies working on a car. "¿Para tu novia?" he asked with a smile. Yes, I said. I was no longer grumpy. — Addison West Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
N.Y. Today: Philippe Petit returns to the high wire at age 74
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment