Two people dressed head to toe in black slipped past an off-limits area, and before anyone could stop them, they were climbing the Empire State Building.
The pair were Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, a Russian couple famous online for free-climbing some of the tallest buildings on earth without permission or safety gear. They were the subjects of the 2024 Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story. Now they were scaling the spire of one of the most iconic buildings in the world.
They climbed all the way to the top, nearly 1,500 feet above the streets of Manhattan, and stayed up there for more than 45 minutes. At the peak, they unfurled a large black banner that read, “When the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace.”
Then, as they began their descent, Beerkus stopped, pulled out a ring, and proposed. Nikolau, perched on the side of the tallest structure for miles, said yes.
She later showed off the ring on social media, where the couple had documented the whole climb.
The romance did not last long before reality set in. NYPD officers from the Emergency Service Unit harnessed up, climbed into the spire to meet them, and took the newly engaged couple into custody as they came down.
They Climbed the Empire State Building—Then He Proposed at the Top
