25th anniversary | 2021
Shanghai night
SEPTEMber 24, 1996
Shanghai tourism festival
25 years ago on September 24, 1996, Jay Cochrane opened the annual Shanghai Tourism Festival with a spectacular skywalk 500 feet over the glittering Chinese city.
Jay walked to the top of the Bao'an Tower, a 35-story skyscraper under construction in the city's Pudong district, covering a distance of 600 feet, beginning atop the Tompson Commercial Building.
Once one of the city's biggest slums, the area was blossoming with skyscrapers as far as one could see. In 1990, the district was designated a development zone and immediately began its rebirth. Today, it contains a major port, a venue for world-class sporting events, a financial hub, and a high-tech zone.
25th anniversary | 2020
qutang gorge
October 28, 1995
the great china skywalk
It's been 25 years and it is still emblazoned in my memory.
Jay Cochrane, a dot in the sky, kept moving toward me. Step by step, heel to toe, on a one and a half inch wire over thirteen hundred feet above the Yangtze River. Jay told me, "Just take life one step at a time." Jay's words rang true as he covered the half mile in the sky.
Jay's skywalk was commissioned by the China Sports Federation to bring international attention to Qutang Gorge, the shortest and most majestic of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze. Jay lived in Fengjie, China, for nearly three months. He came to love the people and each night he would greet visitors to his museum of skywalks at our hotel.
Jay wanted to return to Fengjie for the twenty-fifth anniversary and we discussed it in 2012 while he performed in Niagara Falls. We were all shocked by his death just six months later from cancer. His legacy lives on and he will not be forgotten.