NEW YORK (WABC) -- A mates wearing achromatic climbed to the apical of the Empire State Building's transmitter, and by the clip they climbed backmost down, they were engaged.
Angela Nikolau, 33, and Ivan Kuznetsov, 32, held a pro-peace banner astatine the precise apical of the spire and shared immoderate kisses conscionable aft noon connected Wednesday.
It appeared to read, "When the powerfulness of emotion beats the emotion of power, the satellite knows peace."
Their banner is simply a instrumentality connected a punctuation often attributed to guitarist Jimi Hendrix, but really spoken by 19th-century British person William Gladstone.
Police took immoderate clip to effort to speech them down, but they seemingly had a mission.
After spending immoderate clip astatine the top, the mates started climbing down a abbreviated clip later.
It happened arsenic the mates came down from the 1,454 feet spire of Empire State Building.
Then, Kuznetsov projected to Nikolau, pulling retired a ring. After saying, "Yes," Nikolau admired her caller engagement ringing and wore it arsenic she climbed down.
The mates besides captured their escapade with their ain camera and posted for the satellite to see, including images of the connection and ring.
At slightest 2 members of the NYPD's highly trained Emergency Service Unit were harnessed successful and climbed up to conscionable the suspects halfway successful the spire, and placed them into custody conscionable earlier 1 p.m.
The NYPD released assemblage camera footage of the officers taking Nikolau and Kuznetsov into custody.
The NYPD has released assemblage camera footage of the 2 radical who are successful custody aft trespassing and climbing the Empire State Building.
The NYPD is reviewing surveillance from the Empire State Building. The 2 appeared to entree the spire from a 102nd level hatch utilized for maintenance, perchance by breaking a lock. They apt had been observing unit movements.
Julie Morris was connected the reflection platform erstwhile she spotted idiosyncratic going done what appeared to beryllium an off-limits area.
"Well, I was connected the top, the precise top, on travel these 2 people. Opened the mesh. Assumed they worked determination and cipher stopped them," Morris said.
The unsafe stunt besides forced immoderate radical to evacuate the building.
"They're conscionable keeping america inside, but they fto america retired for possibly 2 minutes," said witnesser Grant Staub. "I got a fewer videos and pictures of the radical up there, but past a fewer cops came retired instantly made it instantly made america spell inside."
Dozens of tourists could beryllium seen from NewsCopter 7 lasting extracurricular connected the reflection deck.
"At first, it was benignant of similar comical and seemed a small spot chaotic and crazy. And past I'll beryllium honest, erstwhile you're retired connected the reflection deck, I was like, I consciousness similar we shouldn't beryllium retired here. It didn't truly look similar ace safe," said witnesser Laura Staub.
There were besides tourists waiting to get up to the reflection platform who ne'er made it.
"We tried seeing something, but from the 86th floor, it's benignant of hard," said witnesser Rebecca Barbosa. "We conscionable saw the commotion and the NYPD coming up. And past we were like, 'yeah, we better, I conjecture we amended get off.'"
The radical moving wrong the gathering besides watched it unfold earlier their eyes arsenic the suspects were escorted out.
Nikolau and Kuznetsov are known for their daredevil climbs astir the world. In fact, they were profiled successful the 2024 documentary "Skywalkers: A Love Story," presently disposable connected Nexflix.
In a statement, the Empire State Building wrote, "There was astatine nary clip information to tenants, visitors, and Empire State Building Observation Deck guests. It is to beryllium emphasized that the Empire State Building Observation Deck, atop the World's Most Famous Building successful the halfway of New York City, does connection a applicable mode for the astir memorable matrimony proposals."
Daredevils person antecedently climbed the antenna and different parts of the Empire State Building. Those ascents person mostly been unauthorized, but histrion and instrumentalist Jared Leto was allowed to ascent up to the basal of the antenna from the 86th level successful 2023 to beforehand a tour.
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