Breaking the Mold tracks the proposals, weddings, gifts and traditions that are throwing out the rulebook and what natural diamonds look like when they do.
There is an easy way to propose at the top of the Empire State Building. Buy a ticket. Book the observation deck. Let the concierge help you time the big moment for sunset. Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus did none of that. On a warm Wednesday in July, they climbed past the ticketed floors entirely, through a locked maintenance hatch on the 102nd floor and up the building’s antenna to a platform 1,454 feet above Manhattan1. There, on a narrow platform below the spire, Beerkus knelt. Nikolau said yes, then spent the climb down admiring a ring she’d be wearing into police custody.
Who are Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus?
It’s the kind of story that sounds impossible until you know who they are. Nikolau and Beerkus climb things for a living (without ropes and often without permits). The newly engaged daredevil climbers were the subject of the 2024 documentary “Skywalkers: A Love Story” and have summited everything from a crane on the world’s tallest construction site in China to the Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, the second tallest building on Earth.
Before they got engaged that day, they unfurled a banner that read, “When the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace,” a line often credited to Jimi Hendrix, though it was actually spoken by a 19th-century British politician2. It stayed up for half an hour while news helicopters circled below, which says something about the two of them worth noting: given a platform 1,454 feet above one of the most photographed skylines on Earth, they chose to make a statement about peace before they made one about themselves.
Who made Angela Nikolau’s engagement ring?
New York jeweler Nuno Rocha made the ring and posted about it after the story broke. “There are countless incredible jewelers in New York, yet Skywalkers trusted me with the ring for one of the biggest moments of their lives,” he wrote. “Watching them stand on top of the Empire State Building, with one of my rings marking the beginning of their next chapter, is something I’ll never forget. Every ring I create is more than gold and diamonds, it’s made to become part of someone’s story. This one now carries a memory that will last a lifetime.”
The ring itself is quiet in a way the moment wasn’t. A single oval natural diamond (opens in a new window), set in 18k gold on a plain band, with a hidden halo tucked beneath the gem. Engraved on the outside of the band, in the couple’s own words: “Your full potential is on the other side of fear.”
The story the charges won’t change
There is a version of this story about burglary charges and broken locks, and that part is true too. Nikolau and Beerkus have since been arrested and now face several charges, including reckless endangerment and criminal trespass.
Whatever the courts decide, one thing won’t change. The ring stays exactly what it was the moment Beerkus knelt to pop the question… a natural diamond, formed over a billion years, now carrying a story that’s entirely theirs.
