It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a wirewalker? That’s right a wirewalker. If you happen to be driving down US-41 Tuesday, January 29 and look up to find a man walking above you then do not worry. The city of Sarasota knows he is there. Nik Wallenda, the man who took a stroll over Niagara Falls last June, will be walking on a wirewalk over US-41 at 10:30am on Tuesday. Wallenda received permission from the Sarasota Commission on Wednesday, January 23rd and now is waiting for approval from the Department of Transportation. The DOT will decide whether Wallenda makes the walk with or without a wire supporting him.
Wallenda is performing the act with the assistance and support of the Ringling Circus. They have agreed to insure the act and Wallenda for $5 million in addition to the $20 million policy Wallenda has himself. 
The insurance covers any fallout from the act including the possible ‘mental distress’ of the audience should they witness Wallenda fall. Wallenda’s walk will be approximately 600 feet long and 200 feet above the ground. The walk is intended to go from the ‘Unconditional Surrender’ statue to the roof of the Marina Tower condo complex. (Find it.)
Nik Wallenda stirred about attention last June when he became the first person to wire walk across near the base of Niagara Falls. Controversy developed when ABC insisted Wallenda wear a tether during his walk, a request the disillusioned Wallenda grudgingly submitted to. Wallenda’s act attracted large crowds both at Niagara Falls and with his live television broadcast (13.3 million viewers). His Niagara Falls walk marked his seventh world record.
The ‘Unconditional Surrender’ statue just returned in December after it was sent to New Jersey in April for repairs. The statue was damaged after a woman crashed into the statue leaving a 3-foot hole in the sailor’s foot. The statue is a 26-foot tall depiction of the famous 1945 V-J Day Kiss photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt depicting a sailor kissing a nurse in the streets of New York City. The statue came to Sarasota in 1995. A WWII veteran, Jack Curran, later purchased the statue for $500,000 to ensure it would stay exactly where it was as a reminder to all men like him who lived through the Great Depression, served in WWII and then returned to their sweethearts.