The Great Nik Wallenda walked tightrope across 32 story High Point Place luxury waterfront highrise towers in Fort Myers, FL and now plans to cross Niagra Falls
November 21, 2011 Leave a comment
Nik Wallenda is a seventh-generation circus performer, scion of the famed Flying Wallendas. He set the Guinness world record for farthest distance traveled by bicycle on a high wire. And now he has set his sights on a new deed of daredevilry — walking the 1,800 feet across the gorge of Niagara Falls while balancing on a two-inch-diameter steel cable.
“This is a dream of mine that I’ve always wanted to do,” Mr. Wallenda, a 32-year-old father of three, said on Thursday, sitting on the pool deck of a hotel here and surveying the waterworks in the distance. “I get chills thinking about it.”
Niagara Falls has a long history of attracting stuntmen, and stuntwomen, eager to taste the thrill, and the fame, of plunging over the cascade packed into wine barrels, rubber inner tubes or hot water tanks. Annie Taylor, a 63-year-old schoolteacher, pioneered the barrel plunge in 1901 and lived to tell about it. Other daredevils followed; not everyone fared as well.
High-wire artist Nik Wallenda defied gravity Friday March 19th, 2010 at approximately 12 Noon when he walked across a wire suspended between the 32-story towers of High Point Place in downtown Ft. Myers. (The luxury condominium towers are located on West First Street between McGregor Boulevard and the Caloosahatchee River.) Looming 397-feet above the ground, High Point Place represents the highest “Skywalk” ever completed by Nik Wallenda whose family is universally-renowned for such daring feats and who, himself, has performed similar aerial acrobatics as part of his coast-to-coast “Walk Across America Tour”.
“High Point Place will be noted not only as the tallest upscale condominium in southwest Florida, but the location of Mr. Wallenda’s record-breaking skywalk as well.” says Joseph Cameratta, of Cameratta Companies, the developer of High Point Place.
