New York has seen its share of dramatic marriage proposals. It has rarely seen one 1,400 feet in the air.
A banner, a knee, a ring
Around midday Wednesday, Angela Nikolau and Ivan Kuznetsov — a Russian couple known online for climbing skyscrapers without safety gear — were spotted at the very top of the Empire State Building's transmitter antenna, roughly 1,450 feet above Midtown, ABC7 New York reported. They unfurled a black banner reading, "When the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace," lingered near the top, and — during their descent to a lower platform — one appeared to propose. Witnesses caught the moment on video: a kiss, and a hand held out to admire a ring.
The arrest
The pair carried no visible tethers. NYPD Emergency Service Unit officers, themselves harnessed, rappelled down to intercept them, and the two were taken into custody just before 1 p.m., WTOP and the Associated Press reported. They face a string of charges including burglary, reckless endangerment, criminal trespass and possession of burglar's tools; investigators believe they reached the spire through a locked maintenance hatch above the 102nd-floor observation deck. Both are presumed innocent.
The 'Skywalkers'
Nikolau and Kuznetsov are subjects of the Netflix documentary "Skywalkers: A Love Story," which followed their illicit climbs around the world. The Empire State Building's management called the stunt unauthorized and said there was "at no time danger to tenants, visitors" or observation-deck guests — noting, pointedly, that its legitimate deck offers proposal packages of its own. New York law bars climbing the outside of any structure over 50 feet without permission, and authorities routinely warn that such stunts are both illegal and potentially deadly. Whether love conquers all is a question for the couple; whether it conquers a burglary charge is a matter for the Manhattan courts.
