NYC rooftop jumper: Viral daredevil stunt at Manhattan high-rise building caught on camera!

Lower Manhattan, New York – Dancing across rooftops is usually something you might see in a Cat Burglar movie, but an Emmy Award-winning film director found out the real thing on camera and his social media post is now going viral.

This was all shown Monday morning about 23 stories above a street in Lower Manhattan, New York. Sister station WABC spoke to both the man who filmed the video and the daredevil himself.

Cinematographer Eric Leung naturally took a double shot when he saw a man in a suit jump gracefully from one edge to the other, at a high altitude.

“He’s been wearing dress shoes that don’t have much grip and it’s been raining all morning, so for us, what’s going on here,” Leung said.

At one point, the daredevil stops, takes a call and takes some pictures.

A resident named Phil lives in the luxury building on the 22nd floor.

“This is my apartment that he just ran over,” Phil said.

At the time, Ljung, an award-winning photographer and filmmaker, was working on a project across the street in a building.

He went to check out the lighting when he snapped a reckless action in front of the camera.

“To me, he didn’t look like he was in distress at any point, he just seemed fairly relaxed there,” Leung said.

Otherwise, Leung said he would have completely stopped filming and asked for help.

The man seemed to know exactly what he was doing, but why?

“I think he was locked out of his apartment and had to use the bathroom,” one woman said.

Finally, in a story that appears to have more holes than a New York cake, a comment posted on Ljung’s page directed WABC reporter Kemberly Richardson to a woman who said she knows exactly who she is.

After a short time, the mystery was solved.

“My name is Joe Smizaski and I’m the COO and I get off rooftops like this all the time,” Smizaski said.

He explained that he works in waterproofing and was checking things up before meeting an inspector there about removing the sidewalk shed.

He told Richardson that he did it dozens of times, with and without safety gear, and that he wasn’t harnessed this time.

Smizaski said that if he had worn safety gear while jumping like he did, the act would have been more dangerous and would have dragged him down.

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