You can add two more voices -- albeit peculiar ones -- to the growing
 chorus demanding the reconstruction of the Twin Towers -- all 110
 stories of them.

The voices belong to Philippe Petit and George Willig, the two stuntmen
 who did more to turn the World Trade Center into an international
 landmark than teams of architects, government officials or even the
 50,000 people who toiled there every day.

Petit's legendary tightrope walk between the still-unfinished towers on
 Aug. 7, 1974 and Willig's bizarre climb up the side of 2 World Trade
 Center three years later made the buildings a living part of New York
 and defined a spirit of a city that even in its darkest moments can
 never be destroyed.

And now the two men want their buildings back.

"If they are not rebuilt, the terrorists win," Petit said the other day.
 He mentioned that when the city of Venice faced the loss of its own
 iconic symbol -- the collapse of the famed Campanile tower in Piazza San
 Marco in 1902 -- a faithful, brick-by-brick reconstruction was
 considered not merely a public works project but a civic necessity.

"New York must do the same thing," said Petit.

Willig, the wiry toy designer who climbed the south tower using homemade
 equipment, agreed: "What are you going to do, leave a gap in the skyline
 and put a plaque down there? Rebuilding those twin monoliths would be
 the national monument."

Both men added an incentive. Willig promised to climb the rebuilt
 buildings, while Petit, who remains an "artist in residence" at St. John
 the Divine, promised, "I will dance across and people will look up at
 the sky and they will believe again that mountains can move," he said.
 "To hear the words `World Trade Center' today is remember an outrage.
 But someday, you will hear the words `World Trade Center' and you will
 hear a cheer of rebirth."

When these men speak, I listen. Yes, it's one thing -- and a good thing
 -- to hear trade center lease Larry Silverstein promise to restore the
 office space, the shops, the streets, and the bustle that made the World
 Trade Center important to New York's commercial life.

But Willig and Petit are talking about something bigger: repairing a
 soul.

To understand the enormity of what these men accomplished, it is
 necessary to do something painful, even a month after the terrorist
 attack: Rebuild those 110-story monoliths in your mind. See them
 standing. See them dwarfing all the other skyscrapers around them.

See our world as it once was.

Now, see Philippe Petit, taking his first steps out onto a taut wire
 strung between the two towers, 1,350 feet above the concrete. See him
 get his legs and even start dancing on the wire. Workers on the ground
 stop in their tracks; a man appears to be walking on air between the
 Twin Towers.

Three years later, Willig stunt, while far less absurdist than Petit's,
 was no less inspirational. Even the cops sent to "rescue" him midway
 through the climb were so impressed that they let him continue. When he
 reached the top, he autographed the facade -- which was still there on
 Sept. 11 -- and was carted off to jail and threatened with a huge
 trespassing fine.

But when he saw what Willig had accomplished -- spiritually, for a city
 in need of hope -- Mayor Abe Beame dropped the fine to $1.10, a penny
 for every floor.

It's still impossible not to be inspired by Petit and Willig did, but in
 the day's since the attack, when I close my eyes to relive their antics,
 I only see them falling. Even in my imagination, I never see Petit make
 it across that wire or Willig reach the top. Something in my mind starts
 them wobbling.

But hearing both men's promise helps the healing process. "I want people
 to be able to look at the sky again," Petit said.

First, we need the buildings.

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