Couple Arrested For Zany Proposal Atop Empire State Building

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A couple scaled the needle of the Empire State Building and were arrested by NYPD officers after a marriage proposal and hanging a banner.

Empire State Building and Midtown Manhattan skyscrapers. New York City, New York, USA.

July began just as wild as the previous month did in New York City, thanks to a couple who brazenly scaled the Empire State Building and captured it on social media, leading to their arrest by New York Police Department officers.

The pair were identified as Ivan Kuznetsov (aka Beerkus), 32, and Angelina Nikolau, 33, of East Orange, New Jersey. The couple climbed the 200-foot antenna of the Empire State Building, where they unfurled a black banner that read: “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.”

Kuznetsov and Nikolau are famous for “rooftopping,” which is the practice of unsecured climbing of rooftops and skyscrapers. They were featured in the 2024 Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story, which culminated in the two climbing the Merdeka 118 Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. That building is the second-tallest in the world after the Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates.

Kuznetsov was shown on news cameras kneeling to propose to Nikolau. An Instagram account belonging to Nikolau showed the moment, 1,450 feet above New York City, as well as a photo of her displaying the engagement ring.

The couple was apprehended by officers from the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch shared the body camera footage of the arrest in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

The NYPD stated that an investigation is ongoing, and that the couple were charged with burglary, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, violation of a local law, possession of burglar’s tools, criminal tampering, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.

The pair’s Empire State Building ascent places them in a clique of urban climbers who’ve scaled New York City’s famed landmarks. But one of them was wholly unimpressed with the feat. The French highwire artist Philippe Petit, who walked a tightrope between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974, was miffed at any comparison when contacted by the New York Times about it. “I mean, how can you compare writing an opera in the sky, and then climbing a very high ladder and unfurling a banner?” he said.