From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 22:45:19 -0600

In response to a comment from Norma Jean Sawicki I wrote a message titled "The Man Who Walked... + a TV program about NYC history."
(1/30/04) Since then I've located information about the documentary film I remembered. Today I even watched much of the film in order to see the portion about Philippe Petit once again.

The documentary film is "The Center of the World," and it's the eighth film in the sequence "New York: A Documentary Film" created by Ric Burns for PBS's American Experience series. After he completed seven films for PBS and a related book was published, Mr. Burns thought he had completed that series on the history of New York City. After 9/11 he knew there was one more film to be made about New York City's history. That film became "The Center of the World."

You'll find information about this three-hour documentary film on the web http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/newyork/ You can merely type The Center of the World New York Documentary Film into your web browser to find it, as well.

The web page about the film has a link to a Teachers' Guide. The guide doesn't cite Philippe Petite, so perhaps - like Darcy (2/01/02) -the author of this teachers' guide doesn't admire his high wire escapade.

Click on "People and Places," which is one of the other links on the web page, and you'll find Philippe Petit.

The section of the film featuring Philippe Petit is 16 minutes long. You'll find it about one hour and 15 minutes into the film. However because the entire film is so compelling, I encourage you to watch it from the beginning. You'll discover more about the contentious history of the World Trade Center. At the beginning of the first hour of the film and then again near the start of the second hour you'll see two short segments about Mr. Petit. Neither of these brief segments is repeated. In one of them Mr. Petit tells how he was seated in a dentist's office waiting room and reading whatever was on the table when he noticed an article about the proposed World Trade Center buildings. They were compared in height to the Eiffel Tower. He became so absorbed in the idea of such tall buildings that he ripped the page from the magazine. Then he said he had to leave the dentist's office, knowing that after doing that rude thing he would have to have his toothache treated by a different dentist! Whether or not it's actually what happened, that in itself is a good story, and he tells it well! The longer section features his own account of the actual preparations for what would be his famous walk. The feelings he remembers having during the walk leave one breathless.

There is much more about Philippe Petit on the web, including information about his own book published for adults, "To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk between the Twin Towers (A North Point Press Book, 2002).

Young children will first meet this man because of seeing, hearing or reading "The Man Who Walked between the Towers." They'll have other ways in the future to think and wonder about this high wire artist, his remarkable feat (pun intended), and the historic buildings he conquered or - as one of the commentators in the film suggests - "the buildings he humanized."

Peace, Ginny

Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu Director Emeritus, Cooperative Children's Book Center www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin - Madison My U.S. mail: 1708 Regent St., Madison, WI 53726A18 My phone: 608#8?25


Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Received on Sun 01 Feb 2004 10:45:19 PM CST