There are still lots of questions at press time of this week’s Niagara Reporter about Nik Wallenda’s planned tightrope walk across the falls next month.
Among the uncertainties are will he or won’t he wear a harness, will he start his walk on the Canadian or American side, and will the thousands of visitors who come to the city to witness the historic walk from the state park have to pay for the privilege?
Assemblyman John Ceretto is urging the state not to charge visitors, saying in a letter to Gov. Cuomo that making it a free event “will help to turn it into an even bigger success for both our Niagara Falls region and the state.”
Ceretto says a free event will attract more people and will allow them to spend more money in local shops and restaurants. No word as of press time from the governor.
And as I wrote a few weeks ago in the Reporter, the eyes of the world will be watching what happens in Niagara Falls before, during, and after Wallenda’s historic attempted crossing, and unfortunately some of the pre-walk publicity has not been favorable to say the least.
Wallenda himself growled about receiving less than warm treatment from the city, especially after police ticketed visitors who came to see him train at the Seneca Niagara Casino on Mother’s Day, prompting an editorial comment in the Buffalo News: “Is the city so desperate for cash that it is willing to frustrate visitors?”
While visibly upset over some of the treatment he has received on our side, Wallenda said they are rolling out the red carpet across the river in Canada . We’ve all heard that before, one way or another, about how the Canadians seem to be able to get it right and things don’t quite as smoothly, or agreeably, on this side of the river.
Things may have gotten a little better later in the week as the City Council agreed to issue special licenses for vendors to operate around the Wallenda event and Mayor Dyster proclaimed that things are coming together at last, blaming some of the problems on too short notice. We can only hope things get better in the coming days if the city is to capitalize on this once-in-a-lifetime event that will be broadcast live for three hours by ABC.
The television network is also said to be lobbying hard for Wallenda to wear a safety device in case there is a problem during the walk, an effort that Wallenda and his family are resisting. A decision could come this week, but the reality is that if he walks with a harness it won’t quite be the highly-anticipated spectacle that he promised when he announced his plan to live out his childhood dream and walk a wire across the falls on his own, without a safety device of any kind. That would be a truly death-defying act that would rivet the world’s attention on the mighty falls as never before.
Now of course no one wants to see this daring young man fall into the gorge. I’m quite certain everyone watching will want to see him make the 1,800-foot journey without mishap. But let’s face it. Wallenda knows that walking across that two-inch wire rope without a harness is the event that will capture the world’s attention much like the early American astronauts did when they rocketed into space, landed on the moon, and sent us back the pictures. Those of us who were around at the time will never forget the moon walk, and if Wallenda’s rope walk comes off as planned, it will go down in history as one of the greatest daredevil stunts of all time. Now, ask yourself, does he really want to settle for less?
As to whether Wallenda\ will start from the Canadian side, as the network reportedly favors, or from the American side, as he himself prefers, remains up in air, so to speak. We could know for sure about the harness and the starting point as soon as this week.
In the meantime, the ABC network, and its local affiliate, Ch. 7 (where I once worked), will ratchet up the pre-walk publicity to get as much attention as possible for its three-hour, prime-time special that will most assuredly be seen by millions. With the world watching, we can only hope Niagara Falls can come together and put on a show that will lure visitors from around the world to see the wonder where Nik Wallenda walked into history. |