Empire State Building Climbers Finally Prove New Yorkers’ Greatest Fear: Yes, We Are Living in a Giant, Metal, Unsupervised Rat Cage
NEW YORK, NY — In a stunning display of what experts are calling “the absolute bare minimum of physical fitness,” two thrill-seekers decided that the Empire State Building wasn’t quite tall enough, so they just sort of… kept going. On Saturday, climbers scaled the exterior of the 103-story skyscraper, presumably to get a better cell signal, take a sick selfie, or prove that New York’s security budget was better spent on those weird, fake subway rats.
The duo, identified by the NYPD as two guys with the collective IQ of a damp napkin, were arrested after a 2-hour climb that turned the world’s most famous art deco building into a giant, expensive jungle gym. This incident, of course, sent the city into its favorite pastime: a full-blown, collective meltdown. Because nothing says “we’ve learned nothing from 9/11” like watching two morons do a vertical bouldering route on a national landmark while every cop in Midtown tries to figure out how a drone works.
Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not saying these guys are heroes. I’m saying they’re idiots. But I’m also saying that if you can shimmy up 1,454 feet of limestone and stainless steel without a rope, you’ve officially reached a level of “I have nothing left to lose” that most of us can only dream of. Meanwhile, I can barely get my window AC unit to stop falling on my neighbor’s cat.
The climb unfolded like a scene from a really bad action movie, but with 100% more NYPD helicopters and 0% plot coherence. Onlookers gawked, phones were whipped out faster than a Karen at a PTA meeting, and traffic on 34th Street came to a screeching halt. Because, of course, the first rule of New York City is: If you see something, say something. The second rule is: If you see someone climbing a building, record it vertically on your iPhone 6, post it to TikTok, and then complain about the noise.
The climbers, who have yet to be named because their families are probably still deciding whether to bail them out or just let them rot, were eventually pulled through a window on the 86th floor. They now face charges that include trespassing, reckless endangerment, and being a massive public nuisance. But let’s be real: the real crime was that they didn’t have a GoPro sponsorship. Missed opportunity, boys.
The Empire State Building, understandably, was not amused. A spokesperson released a statement that read, in part: “We are evaluating our security protocols.” Which is corporate speak for, “We’re going to fire the security guard who was on his phone watching a cat video and install some of those pointy metal spikes that pigeons hate.” Because that’s the solution. Spikes. On the outside of the building. Because the only thing more effective than a $1 billion security system is a few rusty nails.
This isn’t the first time someone has felt the need to prove that humans are just hairless, bipedal squirrels. Remember the guy who climbed Trump Tower in 2016? Or the guy who climbed the Golden Gate Bridge for a selfie? Or the guy who climbed the Eiffel Tower to propose? We as a species have a pathological need to touch the top of things. It’s like we’re all just oversized cats in sneakers, and the Empire State Building is the world’s most expensive scratching post.
But let’s talk about the real victims here: the New Yorkers who had their Sunday ruined. These guys climbed at 8:00 AM on a weekend, which is the sacred time when decent people are still in a food coma from brunch or nursing a hangover from a roof-top bar that costs $20 for a Bud Light. Instead, they got to watch two adrenaline junkies do a free commercial for the NYPD’s inability to stop someone from walking up the side of a building like it’s a massive, vertical staircase. “Hey, babe, I was going to take the kids to the Met, but instead we’re gonna watch this dude get arrested for the crime of being slightly more interesting than the MoMA’s new exhibit of blank white walls.”
And what’s the end game here? They get to the top, they get a pat on the back from a cop, a trip to central booking, and a lifetime ban from the best view in the city. They’re now famous for approximately 45 minutes—the length of a media cycle before we all forget and move on to the next viral outrage, like a pug wearing a tiny hat or a subway rat eating a slice of pizza.
The real, unspoken question on everyone’s mind is: How the hell did they do it? The Empire State Building isn’t a climbing gym. It doesn’t have those cute little colored handholds. It’s a smooth, 1930s-era skyscraper designed by architects who didn’t account for the fact that future generations of humans would have the spatial awareness of a toddler and the grip strength of a rock climber. Did they use suction cups? Did they find a secret, un-sanded section of the facade? Or did they just, you know, do a really long pull-up?
The internet, naturally, has already crowned them folk heroes. Reddit is flooded with threads like “TIFU by climbing the Empire State Building” and “AITA for being impressed by these idiots?” The general consensus seems to be: Yes, they’re assholes. But they’re our assholes. They’ve done something every New Yorker has thought about while stuck in a line at the Empire State Building’s observation deck, waiting 45 minutes to see a slightly better view of the same damn traffic jam you could see from the ground.
But let’s not kid ourselves. This is a disaster waiting to happen. The NYPD is now going to be forced to spend
Final Thoughts
Having covered enough stunts and tragedies in this city, I can tell you that the Empire State Building climbers aren't thrill-seekers so much as they are symptoms of a deeper malfunction: a desperate need to be seen in a world that feels increasingly invisible. For every one who makes it to the top for a viral photo, there are a dozen more who don't, and the real story isn't the climb itself, but the cold, hard arithmetic of risk versus reward that convinces a person the spire is worth the fall. At the end of the day, these ascents remind us that the most dangerous thing in New York isn't the height—it's the silence between the headlines.