On Wednesday morning two urban climbers, people who climb up high buildings often without authorization protections, arrived to the spire of the Empire State Building, in a part of the building that is not open to the public, and there they turned their illegal climbing into a marriage proposal. This is Angela Nikolau, 33 years old, and Ivan Beerkus, 32, a Russian couple living in East Orange, New Jersey, already known online for cordless climbs on skyscrapers and yards. At the top they opened a big black banner with the words “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace” (When the power of love beats love for power, the world knows peace), then Beerkus kneeled in front of Nikolau to make her the marriage proposal, while everything was resumed and published on social media.
The Empire State Building was not evacuated, but the observatory was emptied while the police climbed to the couple. In the videos spread by the NYPD you can see an Emergency Service Unit climb on a narrow scale and protected by a cage, arrive near the two and say: «You can’t be up here» (Do not be able to stand up here). Nikolau and Beerkus have been stopped without opposing resistance, and now will face several charges, including private property violation, dangerous conduct, damage, public order disturbance and possession of digging tools. In New York it is forbidden to climb on the outside of buildings, bridges, towers or high structures more than 50 feet, unless the owner’s authorization for construction or maintenance works: the norm provides up to a year in prison or a fine up to a thousand dollars.
The most interesting part of the story, however, is that it does not seem like an improvised gesture. Nikolau and Beerkus are the protagonists of the 2024 Skywalkers Netflix documentary: A Love Story, built around their way of living and monetizing the “rooftopping”: sneak into very tall buildings, get on roofs, cranes or antennas, and produce images quite dangerous to become content. Netflix describes the film as the story of two people who test love and trust by illegally climbing one of the tallest buildings in the world; the documentary collects material shot in seven years and six countries, and also tells their ascent to the Merdeka 118 of Kuala Lumpur, one of the highest skyscrapers in the world.
The fact that they chose the Empire State Building for this new effort is explained simply by the importance of the building: it is 1,250 feet high up to the top floor, but it reaches 1.454 feet counting eyelashes and antenna. That upper part, today full of communications equipment, had to initially function as a mast of dable fittings, a project soon abandoned because the currents and winds around the skyscraper made the operation unrealistic – and also because the world did not go in the direction hoped by the architect of the Empire, and the dirigibles soon left the place to the airplanes as we know them today. The spire has remained, however, and has become one of the most famous images of the city.
New York has a long history of people trying to measure themselves with its most famous buildings. In 1974 Philippe Petit walked on a cable between the Twin Towers, about 1.350 feet from the ground, in an illegal action but thought and told as a performance. In 1994 Alain Robert, the French climber nicknamed “Spider-Man”, kicked the Empire State Building; in 2008 he also climbed the New York Times Building, exploiting the horizontal tondini of the façade, which were later removed. In 2014 a 16-year-old from New Jersey managed to overcome the security of the One World Trade Center still under construction and reached the spire.
L’articolo The story of the two who climbed the Empire State Building proviene da IlNewyorkese.
