Twin Towers tightrope walker recalls daring feat 50 years later: ‘Artistic crime of the century’

Shortly after 7 a.m. on Aug.

7, 1974, French performance artist Philippe Petit stepped out from the roof of the World Trade Center’s South Tower and onto a one-inch thick cable, stretching 140 feet across to the North Tower. With no safety net or harness, all he had was a balancing pole for company – and a drop of 1,360-feet and certain death below him should he make one wrong step. “I was a little anxious on that first crossing because we never checked how strong the anchor point was on the other side,” Petit tells The Post.

“It wasn’t great, to be honest, but it was good enough.” Audacious, dangerous and entirely illegal, Petit’s wire walk was called the ‘artistic crime of the century’ and was years in the planning. Using covert surveillance and endless subterfuge, Petit managed to smuggle a huge amount of equipment up the 110 floors of the South Tower before his friend and collaborator, Jean-Louis Blondeau, fired a cable across to the North Tower using a bow and arrow.

He even chartered a helicopter so he could take aerial photographs of the rooftops of the Twin Towers. Petit spent 45 minutes walking the wire, making eight crossings. At one point he danced on it; he even laid down on it.

When it was over, Petit was immediately arrested. He was released without charge on the condition he perform a free show for children in Central Park. A lot has happened since that Wednesday morning 50 years ago, not least of which was the destruction of the Twin Towers.