Spiderman, actually a 46-year-old French climber named Alain Robert, free-soloed, that is climbed without ropes or other climbing safety equipment, up the 885-foot-high, 73-story Cheung Kong Center skyscraper in downtown Hong Kong in 40 minutes on Tuesday to draw attention to global warming. Robert later told reporters, “The global warming is something that is going to affect the next generation. The future is really compromised if we are not doing anything.”
Upon reaching the building summit, Robert found security guards waiting his arrival. He then waved to a crowd of 70 viewers on the ground. A Hong Kong police officer said, however, no charges will be pressed on Robert because the building, owned by Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong’s richest person, filed no complaint. This is Robert’s second ascent of the tower; his first ascent was in June 2005.
Over the past 15 years Alain Robert has climbed over 80 buildings and monuments throughout the world, including Australia’s Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Malaysia’s Petronas Towers, and the façade of the New York Times Building. Robert began climbing on the sunny limestone cliffs of southern France. He usually climbed solo…very dangerous. In 1982 he fell 45 feet, landing head first and suffering numerous injuries. Doctors told him he would never climb again, but, of course, he did. He climbed his first skyscraper in 1994 in Chicago, becoming a real live Spiderman.
Read more about Alain Robert and his exploits at the New York Times archives.
The official Alain Robert website (French).
Photograph above: Robert Alain AKA Spiderman after climbing Russia’s Federation Tower in 2005.
Photograph © Dima Korotayev/Getty Images
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