![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1782929050_203_power-of-love.png\")
<\/p>\nTwo people are now in NYPD custody after climbing to the top of the Empire State Building, where they unfurled a large banner atop the iconic Manhattan landmark.<\/p>\n
The dangerous trespassing stunt appeared to be an act of love.<\/p>\n
Police received 911 calls around 12 p.m. Wednesday, when the death-defying duo were first spotted 1,454 feet in the air on the top of the building’s antenna. Both were dressed in black clothing and face coverings.<\/p>\n
The trespassing duo fastened the banner with large white lettering to the antenna: “When the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After approximately 30 minutes atop the tower, the pair began climbing down the spire and onto a platform where they embraced. One of the trespassers appeared to propose to the other. <\/p>\n
Roughly 10 minutes later, they began descending the rest of the spire. <\/p>\n
The NYPD is looking into whether the two individuals atop the building are the same pair behind a documentary called \u201cSkywalkers: A Love Story,\u201d showing them pull off similar stunts on skyscrapers across the globe.<\/p>\n
The so-called rooftopping documentary follows the couple Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus. The two are Russian nationals who often are filmed climbing buildings with little to no safety equipment.<\/p>\n
Neither Nikolau nor Beerkus have a known criminal history in New York City.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t clear how the pair gained access to the antenna, which rises well above public areas of the 102-story building.<\/p>\n
The police department told New Yorkers to expect road closures and emergency activity around the building. There was no immediate reply to a message to the building’s management.<\/p>\n
The Empire State Building appeared to remain open during the incident.<\/p>\n
An employee told NBC New York she could not figure out how the climbers managed to get to the top of the landmark.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know how — at first I thought they tried to scale the outside of the building. But we would have heard about that,” an employee named Sydney said.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this reporting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two people are now in NYPD custody after climbing to the top of the Empire State Building, where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-283860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}