Two masked climbers scaled the spire of the Empire State Building, unfurled a peace banner and staged a marriage proposal nearly 1,500 feet above Manhattan — then were taken into police custody and hit with felony charges. The climb happened on July 1, 2026, and the story is back in the headlines this week after new reports on November 3 revisited the charging details.
The pair, widely identified as Russian “rooftoppers” Angela Nikolau, 33, and Ivan Kuznetsov, 32, also known online as Ivan Beerkus, climbed the roughly 200-foot needle that tops the 1,250-foot tower, reaching about 1,454 feet above Midtown with no visible safety gear.
A proposal at 1,454 feet
From the spire, the couple unfurled a white banner reading: “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.” The man appeared to kneel and propose, and the couple hugged and kissed as news helicopters circled.
NYPD Emergency Service Unit officers climbed up after them and brought them down alive. Streets around Fifth Avenue and 34th Street were shut down, helicopters were scrambled, and the couple were taken into custody around 1 p.m. without reported injuries to police, tenants or tourists.
From romance to felony charges
The romantic storyline ended at the precinct. Police and prosecutors charged the pair with burglary, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, criminal tampering, criminal trespass, disorderly conduct and possession of burglar’s tools, according to charging documents cited in multiple reports.
Nikolau and Kuznetsov were already famous from the 2024 Netflix documentary “Skywalkers: A Love Story”. The Empire State Building said the “unauthorized incident” was resolved and there was “no danger” to tenants or guests — but the stunt has reignited debate about how two social media stars reached the spire of one of the world’s most famous buildings.
The recirculation of the story this week shows how a single stunt can keep travelling months later, as new reports pick up the charging details and the security questions. For the climbers, the legal case is still the real story: felony charges including burglary and reckless endangerment carry serious consequences, and their supervised release is only the start of a long court process.
