Two people climbed the Empire State Building today. Untethered. No harness. No safety net. Nothing between them and the ground but 1,500 feet of New York City air and the audacity to be free.

They wore masks. They wore black. They carried a banner — black and white, simple, the kind of message the powerful never want you to actually believe: "When the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace."

And then, halfway down, on a steel platform above the greatest city in the world, the man dropped to one knee and asked the woman to marry him.

She said yes. The crowd below screamed. He slipped a ring on her finger. They kissed. And then the NYPD whisked them away in a van.

Her name is Angela Nikolau. She's 33. His name is Ivan Beerkus (also known as Ivan Kuznetsov). He's 32. They're from East Orange, New Jersey. They're rooftop climbers — part of a global subculture of people who scale the tallest structures on earth with nothing but their hands and their nerve. They climbed the Eiffel Tower. The Shanghai Tower. The Sagrada Familia. They starred in a Netflix documentary about it called Skywalkers: A Love Story.

Today they added the Empire State Building to the list.

The state's response was predictable. Burglary. Reckless endangerment. Criminal mischief. Possession of burglar's tools. Criminal tampering. Trespassing. Disorderly conduct. Seven criminal charges for two people who climbed a building and hung a banner that said love should beat power.

Read that list again. Two people climbed a building and hung a banner that said love should beat power — and the state hit them with 7 criminal charges. That's not justice. That's the system telling you exactly what it thinks of love that doesn't ask permission.

Left: Angela & Ivan embrace after the proposal Right: Ivan & Angela on top of the radio tower peak

The Media Sees a Crime — The Message is Love

Here's what the coverage won't tell you: There's something deeply political about what they did, whether they intended it that way or not. Every skyscraper in Manhattan is a monument to capital — to the accumulation of wealth so extreme that it literally towers over human beings. The Empire State Building is the crown jewel of that religion. And two people, in black, with their faces covered, climbed it like it belonged to them.

Because it does.

The buildings belong to the workers who built them. The land belongs to the people who walk it. The sky belongs to everyone who dares look up and imagine something else.

The Jimi Hendrix quote on that banner — "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace" — isn't new. But it hit different today, hanging from an antenna that's been broadcasting the American empire's signal for nearly a century, while helicopters circled and tourists evacuated and the whole city stopped to look up.

I was reminded of another quote from a song by artist Lowkey

Rebellion is the purest expression of a vital type of love.

Because think about it. What is more loving than refusing to accept a world that kills people and calls it order? What is more intimate than two people, 1,500 feet in the air, choosing each other in front of a city that doesn't know their names and a state that wants them in cages? What is more radical than saying this tower, this symbol of everything that dominates us, is just a building — and I am a human being, and I am free?

They climbed the temple of capital and proposed to each other at the altar.

Image

That's not a stunt. That's a thesis statement.

The NYPD bodycam footage is already making the rounds. An Emergency Services Unit officer climbed up to meet them and asked how they were doing. "Well, you can't be up here," he told them. Which is the entire system in a sentence: You can't be up here. You can't be free. You can't be in love in ways we didn't authorize.

Ivan on 1 knee proposing to Angela 1500ft above Manhattan.

Rebellion the Purest Expression of a Vital Type of Love

But they were. For over an hour, in 90-degree heat, clinging to a metal antenna above Midtown Manhattan — they were up there. And no law, no charge, no van ride to central booking can undo that.

The observation deck was evacuated. The World Cup tourists were shuffled out. Helicopters circled. The city held its breath. And two people — 32 and 33 years old — reminded everyone watching that freedom isn't a policy. It's a verb.

It's something you do.

It's climbing the thing they told you not to climb. It's loving the person they told you not to love. It's hanging the banner they told you not to hang. It's getting down on one knee at 1,500 feet because the world is burning and you still believe in something.

Angela and Ivan are in custody. They face serious charges. The NYPD is investigating how they got up there. The building is reviewing security. The city will move on by tomorrow.

But I won't forget this.

Not the banner. Not the proposal. Not the image of two people, unmasked and unafraid, kissing on a steel platform above the machine — if only for a moment — before the machine came to collect them.

That's the thing about acts of love that the state calls crimes. They can arrest the lovers. They can charge them with burglary. They can lock them in cells and tell the world it was reckless endangerment.

But some things can not be undone.

They can't erase the image. They can't un-ring the bell. They can't stop a city full of people from looking up and thinking, just for a second: What if that's true? What if love really is more powerful than all of this?

Two people climbed the Empire State Building today. And for one hour, in one city, on one hot July afternoon — love was more powerful than all of this.

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