David Blain
On May 22, 2002, a crane lifted
Blaine onto a 100 ft (30 m) high and 22 in (55.88 cm) wide pillar
in Bryant Park, New York City. Although he was not harnessed to the pillar, there were two retractable handles on
either side of him to grasp in the event of harsh weather. The Evening Standard's James Langton wrote,
"He was battered by high winds and unusually cold May weather during his first night and would have been killed or
seriously injured if he had fallen." He remained on the pillar for exactly 35 hours. The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik
wrote, "David Blaine, standing up there, is actually as good a magical metaphor for the moment as Houdini, fighting
his way out of the straitjacket of immigrant identity toward prosperity, was for his." With his legs weak from
standing atop the pillar for so long, he ended the feat by jumping down onto a landing platform made out of a 12 foot
(3.7 m) high pile of cardboard boxes and suffered a concussion.
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