Times Square

Man in Police Custody After Scaling Outside of NY Times Building

Police say the man who scaled the side of the New York Times building Thursday was identified as 36-year-old Wilmer Ferrara from Massachusetts

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A man took to the side of The New York Times headquarters on Thursday, climbing several stories before police got him inside and into custody.

The NYPD said it happened shortly after 5 p.m., when the man started scaling the south side of the building, which is in midtown Manhattan near Times Square, across the street from the Port Authority bus terminal.

The NYPD said officers apprehended the man, who was identified Friday as 36-year-old Wilmer Ferrara from Massachusetts, from inside on the sixth floor. Video showed Ferrara waiting as officers cut or broke part of a window, then pulled him in, nearly 45 minutes after the ordeal started.

A crowd gathered on the sidewalks below to anxiously watch the man venture along the outside of the building. Ricardo Figueroa said he was one of the first people to notice the climber, and flagged down police.

"He was climbing up the building like Spider-Man ... I said 'Get Down,' in Spanish," said Figueroa, adding that the man ignored him on his way up to the sixth floor. "My was was racing. We don't want to see nobody fall."

Ferrara was charged with reckless endangerment, obstructing governmental administration and criminal trespass, according to an NYPD spokesperson. It was not clear why he decided to climb the building.

The 52-story building has been the target of climbers before. In 2011, a man climbed up five stories before coming back down. Three men made the attempt in 2008, two making it to the roof and one to the 11th floor.

And he's far from the first to try and turn NYC landmarks and skyscrapers into their personal jungle gyms. In 2018, Patricia Okoumou scaled the Statue of Liberty to protest immigration policies. Two years before that, a man attempted to climb Trump Tower in midtown using just suction cups.

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