High above Midtown Manhattan, a Russian couple turned one of New York City’s most recognizable landmarks into the stage for a perilous plea for peace — and what appeared to be a marriage proposal that ended with both of them under arrest.
Wearing sleeveless black outfits and chronicling the stunt on social media, Ivan ‘Vanya’ Beerkus and Angela Nikolau clung to the Empire State Building’s antenna spire near the red beacon glowing at its tip, roughly 443m above the pavements below.
At that height, they unfurled a black banner bearing a message in stark white capital letters, whipping in the wind: “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.”
A proposal in the clouds
Shortly after 12.30pm, aerial video showed the pair carefully descending to a lower platform within the antenna structure, where they stopped for several moments.
Ms Nikolau was then seen admiring her hand and photographing her ring, apparently for Instagram.
The couple’s high-risk exploits in the world of so-called ‘rooftopping’ were featured in the 2024 Netflix documentary ‘Skywalkers: A Love Story’.
The New York Police Department shut streets around the tower and later said officers had taken the pair into custody “without incident”.
Police identified them as Angelina Nikolau, 33, and Ivan Kuznetsov, 32, and said they were charged with multiple offences, including burglary, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, criminal tampering, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct, according to an NYPD spokesperson.
The spokesperson said he did not know whether the couple remained in custody.
Authorities have not said how the pair managed to reach the antenna.
Security at New York landmarks, including the Empire State Building, has been tightened since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Her father says ‘nothing unusual’
The Art Deco skyscraper, once the tallest building on earth for decades until it was overtaken in the 1960s, sells tickets to tourists eager to visit its enclosed observation deck on the 102nd floor.
What it does not permit is for visitors to continue beyond that point and scramble up the 61m antenna spire above it.
An Empire State Building spokesperson called Wednesday’s ascent an “unauthorised incident” and, in a pointed statement, suggested the couple might have been better served by the building’s $1,000 ‘Happily Ever Empire Proposal Package’, which offers private use of the observation deck.
Ms Nikolau appears to come from a family comfortable with heights. Her father, Russian circus artist Dmitriy Nikolau, said he knew about the climb when he answered a reporter’s call.
“I think it is normal to climb up a roof in any country, including the United States, according to any constitution,” he said.
Asked whether her arrest worried him, he replied: “Why should I be worried? I climb up roofs myself.”
