I found this on a blog by Pierre Tristram, regarding Phil Petit (the Twin Towers tightrope walker) George Willig, and Jeb Corliss, who tried parachuting off the ESB:

"How different is Jeb Corliss from Philippe Petit? How different from George Willig or the Astoria man, Owen Quinn? Not at all. The only difference was the landmark and the city’s attitude—the jumping off point and the landing zone. We’ve gone from celebrating those who soar and defy in beautiful and marginally risky ways to castigating them like common trespassers. That’s the thing: They are trespassing. But not on property or safety. They’re trespassing on authority. Their freedom, however planned and studied and considerate of the environment around them is meaningless. Law and order, “security,” authority, or what’s more vulgarly and euphemistically known as responsibility, is paramount. But nothing is gained by adhering to responsibility defined by today’s criteria of security, except a sense that between freedom and order, order will be maintained at all cost, and freedom will always submit. Funny how the hard-hatted Daily News and the white-collared New York Times, along with the law, banded up on Corliss to give him his public beating. It’s not that nothing has changed in New York . The law and order years of Rudy Giuliani alone gave New York a Nixonian feel that made it natural for the Republican National Convention to be held in New York for the first time ever two years ago. But the city that has been so willing to submit to its admiration for the creatively subversive now submits to the merely appropriate."

He's right: I think the authorities' disdain for this kind of stuff isn't merely a mainifestation of zealous security precautions, but also a hatred of individuality and original thought.

I also believe it manifests itself in periodic crackdowns on photography around town - ostensibly in the name of security.

www.forgotten-ny.com

Thanks Kevin.
My feelings exactly.

Furthermore:

The TV show that represents NY more than any other is Law and Order. They are given carte blanche to shoot in the city and have a permanent production home at Chelsea Piers. A cop show. Aren't they clever.

What's missing these days from the American public identity is the honoring of resistance to authority. Its what America was built on. Bob Dylan said "To live outside the law you've got be honest". Outlaws, not Law and Order. The Founding "fathers", Jesse James, Martin Luther King, Elvis and Marilyn, etc.etc, all have that in common. If Americans can remove the stick that has been thrust up its ass, maybe things can start to change for the better.

Uh, Jesse James was a psychopathic killer with almost no redeeming human qualities. He certainly doesn't bear mentioning with the founding fathers or MLK. And just how did Marilyn Monroe resist authority?