Philippe Petit, the French aerialist and juggler whose unauthorized 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers is the subject of the documentary Man on Wire, which plays at the Tribeca Film Festival this week, doesn’t really approve of the Freedom Tower. “I stay away from politics because I am just a street juggler,” he says, “but I can tell you secretly that I am very unhappy to not have two towers being built, because I could offer to dance again—a dance of freedom, of victory, of ‘We shall not be doomed.’ ” But he wouldn’t return to the site without being invited. “I am an artist who is only interested in doing beautiful and meaningful things,” he says. “You cannot approach this without being sensitive to what happened. Let’s wait and see.”

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
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