# Empire State Building Climbers Spent More Time Arguing With Cops Than Actually Climbing, Which Honestly Tracks
Look, I get it. New York City is a hellscape of overpriced apartment rentals, rats that have unionized, and subway smells that can only be described as "biological warfare." So when two adrenaline junkies decided to scale the Empire State Building last week, I was ready to give them a standing ovation. Finally, some content that wasn't about a landlord charging $4,000 for a closet or someone getting pushed onto the tracks. But then I read the actual police report, and my respect evaporated faster than my will to live during a 9 AM Zoom call.
The climbers—let's call them "Brad" and "Chad" because they absolutely have the energy of guys who call themselves "entrepreneurs" on LinkedIn—decided to make the 103-floor ascent without ropes or safety gear. Bold move, Cotton. But here's where it gets peak 2024: they apparently spent more time arguing with NYPD officers than actually climbing. According to sources, the duo was halfway up the building when cops yelled at them to stop. Instead of doing the smart thing (you know, not falling to their deaths), they decided to have a full-blown debate about their "constitutional rights" while dangling 800 feet above Fifth Avenue.
"Sir, you are in violation of several city ordinances," one officer reportedly shouted.
"I'M EXERCISING MY FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO BE A HUMAN SPIDER-MAN!" one of them screamed back.
Brother, that's not how the First Amendment works. But sure, go off, king. Tell me more about how the founding fathers definitely intended for you to free-solo a historic landmark because your GoFundMe for climbing gear didn't hit its goal.
The argument went on for approximately 20 minutes, which is longer than most of my relationships and certainly longer than my attention span for anything that doesn't involve a cat video. Bystanders captured the exchange on their phones, because of course they did. In 2024, nothing is real unless it's documented in 4K with some random TikTok sound playing in the background. One video shows Brad—I'm assuming it's Brad because he has the energy of someone who says "it's not about the money, it's about the principle" while being $50,000 in credit card debt—gesturing wildly with one hand while clinging to a window ledge with the other.
"You don't understand the vision!" he yelled.
Oh, I understand the vision. The vision is you becoming a stain on the sidewalk that gets power-washed away by 6 AM because the city has better things to do than memorialize your stupidity.
Let's talk about the logistics of this clusterfuck, because it's genuinely impressive in a "how are we still this dumb as a species" kind of way. The Empire State Building is 1,454 feet tall. That's 1,454 feet of potential Darwin Award nomination. The climbers started their ascent at 4:30 AM, which is the only smart decision they made all day. At that hour, the only people awake are insomniacs, cryptobros checking their portfolios, and NYPD officers who really didn't sign up for this shit.
The climb took approximately 90 minutes. Of that, sources say only 30 minutes was actual climbing. The remaining hour was a combination of:
- Arguing with cops
- Taking selfies (one climber paused to get a good angle of the sunrise)
- Responding to comments on their Instagram live stream
- Trying to figure out why their GoPro wasn't recording properly
At one point, a police helicopter hovered nearby, and one of the climbers reportedly gave them the middle finger while shouting, "I PAY TAXES!" Sir, you're literally committing a crime that will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in emergency response costs. But sure, flex that tax bracket.
The NYPD eventually had to deploy their Emergency Service Unit, which is basically the police equivalent of calling in the Avengers because some idiots decided to play real-life Temple Run. They managed to talk the climbers down—after, I'm told, a heated debate about whether climbing a building counts as a "peaceful protest" (spoiler: it doesn't). Both were arrested and charged with reckless endangerment, trespassing, and being a public nuisance. The last charge should honestly be applied more often. If I have to listen to one more person on the subway play their music on speaker, I want them charged with nuisance too.
Now, let's address the inevitable "BuT tHeY'rE aRtIsTs" defense that's already trending on Twitter. Yes, I saw the comments. "They're pushing the boundaries of human achievement!" "This is performance art!" "They're challenging our perception of vertical space!" Shut the fuck up. No they're not. They're attention-seeking narcissists who saw a TikTok of someone else doing something stupid and thought, "I could do that, but with more arguing."
Real artists create something. These guys created a traffic jam on 34th Street and a headache for everyone involved. The only boundary they pushed was the patience of the NYPD, and even that was a low bar considering they deal with people shitting in the subway daily.
The most ironic part of this entire saga? The climbers claimed they did it to "raise awareness about climate change." Because of course they did. Nothing says "I care about the environment" like causing a massive carbon footprint from police helicopters, emergency vehicles, and the thousands of people stuck in gridlock watching your Live stream. The cognitive dissonance is Olympic-level. They might as well have said they were climbing to raise awareness about gravity while ignoring the fact that gravity was about to turn them into a cautionary tale.
I reached out to one of the climbers' Instagram DMs (don't judge me, it's called journalism) and asked why they chose the Empire State Building specifically. His response? "Because it's iconic." Deep. Very deep. Why not climb something meaningful, like a mountain? Why not climb the corporate ladder? Why not climb out of your mom's basement? But
Final Thoughts
The Empire State Building climbers remind us that the line between audacious stunt and reckless trespass often blurs in the public eye, but the real story is never just about the climb. What strikes me is how these individuals, driven by a mix of ego, desperation, or sheer spectacle, force us to reconsider the very nature of modern achievement—is it mastery over a building, or mastery over the impulse to do something foolish? Ultimately, for all their bravado, they leave behind a lesson as cold as the steel they scaled: the tallest towers are built for looking out, not for climbing up.