As the 40th anniversary of the dedication of the Southwest Tower approached, I knew catching up with Philippe Petit would be necessary. I met Philippe at his home in upstate New York wanting to capture his thoughts and memories of that day. For me it was an unforgettable day and thanks to Philippe, I got to relive it in his gracious video interview.
Another key to the backstory of that event was my friend Stephen Boyle. It turns out it was not the perfect day for the setting of the Jerusalem Stone. Steve tells me in this video about some of the challenges overcome that the audience wouldn’t see or ever know about.
“The Jerusalem Stone, the first cornerstone of the tower, is located in the second course. Most masons would acknowledge that getting the first course in correctly is one of the most important parts of a project…Since the scaffold was not complete on all four sides, it was not possible to set out the building line in advance of the ceremony…This meant we would have to take an educated guess at where the first stones should go and hope that it worked out (it didn’t but that’s another story).”
– Steve Boyle
My own day was one of mapping out the multiple scenes I wanted to cover. One man, lots of places to be at the same time. I’m thankful for multiple cameras.
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