Terrifying Video of a Man Jumping Across a 23-Story Building in New York City Was Apparently Not a Stunt For this 60-year-old contractor, rooftop hopping is all in a day's work.
By Emily Rella
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
It's hard to get a New Yorker to bat an eyelash at anything unusual going on in the streets — they've seen it all.
But in a video that has now gone viral, one man had people in awe as he lept across window awnings on the roof of a 23-story building in downtown New York City.
The clip, which was taken by Chicago based-film director Eric Ljung, shows the man appearing to take a phone call before leaping gracefully across window awnings before stopping and crawling inside of a window. The video clip then pans out to show viewers just how massive the tall building is, making it all the more horrifying.
But rest assured, this was no film stunt on Ljung's behalf.
"I have no idea what dude was doing. He was already hopping around from awning to awning when we first saw him," Ljung wrote on Instagram along with the clip. "Looks like he made a call and looked around for about a minute, then hopped back in the direction he came when we first saw him, and then climbed in a window. It was wet out, and he was wearing dress shoes."
The building in question is 90 West Street in the Financial District of Manhattan, which sits upwards of 324 feet tall.
And thanks to the power of social media, it seems as though the mystery was solved and that the man has, in fact, done this before.
The mystery James Bond figure has been identified as a 60-year-old contractor named Joe Smizaski who works on waterproofing buildings in the city.
His girlfriend's daughter-in-law, Marissa Fazendeiro, first identified Smizaski and his profession to Daily Mail, joking that maybe he was "secretly James Bond as well."
Smizaski then confirmed his identity to NBC 4, explaining that rooftop hopping is just what he does.
"People have problems leaks, I'm a problem-solver. That's what I do," he told the outlet. "I don't anything unsafe. I want to go home to kids and family, that's just the way I was brought up in the trade."
Smizaski maintained that the footage shown captured quite a common occurrence for him while on the job, and insisted that it was just a standard part of his work day.
Videos like this make desk jobs more appealing.
