Two masked individuals climbed to the top of the Empire State Building on Wednesday afternoon and unfurled a banner promoting world peace. The incident took place around noon, drawing a police response while the climbers were still on the structure.
The flag read, "When the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace." NYPD helicopters were seen hovering nearby as the climbers appeared to begin their descent around 12:30 p.m.
Empire State Building and NYPD
The Empire State Building has 102 floors and rises 1,454 feet from the tip of its antenna. It opened on April 11, 1931, was built in 410 days, and held the title for tallest building for 40 years before the World Trade Center surpassed it in 1970.
The climbers' identities were still unknown, and how they managed to reach the top was also unknown. That leaves the climb itself as the main unresolved part of the incident, even as the banner and the police response were visible from below.
New York City response
Police were reportedly responding to the building as the two masked individuals began coming down. For people below in Manhattan, the immediate question was not the message on the banner but how two people got to the spire in the first place.
The answer to that question will determine whether the incident is treated as an access failure, a security breach, or something else entirely. For now, the only hard facts are the climb, the banner, the helicopter response, and the descent that started around 12:30 p.m.
