It is this absence that reminds us most potently of what is gone

August 28, 2024 12:07 AM

Fifty years after the original walk, watching Petit gesticulate in an air-conditioned room with One World Trade Center behind him, it was hard not to feel that if the original event had been emblematic of the raw, unsupervised downtown New York of the seventies, this event perfectly encapsulated the downtown New York of today: every facet of life contained within a billion-dollar real estate development; a gluttony of high-efficiency glass, K-frames, and speculative investments. from Death Is Very Close: A Champagne Reception for Philippe Petit by Patrick McGraw [The Paris Review; ungated]

Philippe Petit, previously

posted by chavenet (2 comments total)

I would've liked to go to this event, but even the cheap seats were $250. I understand the deal--the insurance alone must have been astronomical--but it certainly did stand in contrast to the (terrifyingly) DIY nature of the original event.
posted by praemunire at 7:54 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]

I was lucky enough to live in NYC in the 70s. It was extraordinary. Was it Calvin Klein who said there were three extraordinary decades in the 20th century. Berlin in the 20s...Paris in the 30s, and NYC in the 70s.
posted by Czjewel at 8:46 AM on August 28 [2 favorites]