NYFalls.com Talk

Daredevil Nik Wallenda says he's not happy about it but he'll probably be tethered to the tightrope that he plans to walk over Niagara Falls next month.

Wallenda said Monday that ABC is adamant about making him wear the safety device out of consideration for viewers who tune in to the network's three-hour, prime-time special on June 15....

NIAGARA FALLS, ONT. - Nik Wallenda needs your help to pay for his tightrope walk across Niagara Falls.

The seventh-generation wirewalker has set up a page on the fundraising site IndieGoGo.com seeking financial contributions ranging from $1 to $10,000. As of Wednesday night, $840 had been raised toward the total goal of $50,000 for his June 15 walk.

And for $10,000, Wallenda will come to your house, set up a low wire in your backyard and give you a private two-hour wirewalking lesson.

Not so death-defying
Buffalo News columnist Rod Watson says the public was "duped" and hotels "should offer full refunds to anyone who cancels after finding out the death-defying feat they thought they were coming to see will be nothing of the sort."
No one is more dismissive of the tether than Wallenda, who says he will wear it because he has to, even though "I feel like I'm cheating" and the device invites failure: "If you think you can fall, you're more likely to. You have a different attitude." And it's not what his audience expects: "People don't watch NASCAR just to see a car race."
Of course, Wallenda could be setting the stage for an even more dramatic feat: to detach the tether once he's out on the wire, finish without it and dare ABC to do anything about it. He's said he'd have to be able to jettison the tether if he feels it's compromising his safety. "I have never in my life walked with a harness," Wallenda says. The weight of the tether, he jokes, "makes it feel like I'm dragging an anchor behind me.''
Some are rooting for him to drop the harness, TV contract or not. "I think as soon as he gets out there, he'll take it off," says Freddy Arnold, 49, a construction worker who was one of hundreds who came to watch Wallenda practice in the parking lot. "He can't let television tell him what to do." Wallenda says no. "I don't foresee that happening at this point. I have given ABC my word," he says

Today, the city is old and poor; two of three residents subsist largely on welfare or Social Security, according to Census studies.
Even the Falls District, next to the state park, is pockmarked by empty lots, closed businesses and abandoned houses. Can Wallenda help change the city's luck? "For a weekend," Dyster says, "the world's attention will focus on Niagara Falls."
The world may not like what it sees, according to Ginger Strand, a cultural historian who has studied Niagara. "Everyone already knows all about the falls, but they don't realize how bad the city is," she says. "An American who arrives there is immediately appalled and embarrassed for the nation and hurries to the Canadian side."
Wallenda's walk will have one bit of unfortunate symbolism. Like many tourists, he'll start on the American side but wind up in Canada.

Starting around 10:30 p.m., (June 15) he is to walk on a 2-inch steel cable across the falls, a cable installed by one of the Rochester area’s oldest companies, O’Connell Electric Inc.

Though wire-walking at the falls has a long history, the Wallenda walk — 200 feet above the water — will be the first across the brink of the falls rather than farther down in the gorge.

Wallenda — unhappily, judging by his public remarks on the topic — will be tethered to the wire to prevent a plunge that likely would be fatal. ABC-TV, which is carrying the event live during a three-hour broadcast, agreed to sponsor the event, estimated to cost $1.3 million, only if Wallenda was protected against catastrophe....