All eyes were on the 270-foot, 1,500-pound inflatable dragon curled around the top of the Empire State Building.
The massive figure, a promotion for the HBO series “House of the Dragon,” drew most of the focus last week at the New York landmark.
But just above the creature’s tail, James Marksbury was getting ready for a spectacle of his own.
In the moments before sunrise on June 19, he positioned himself 1,280 feet up on the ice deck for a very important event.
He may not be a dragon rider, but on most days, the 39-year-old rope access technician nimbly scales the towering building.
On this day, he would be proposing to his girlfriend.
At about 5:10 a.m., Marksbury got down on one knee and asked Taylor Hunter if she would marry him.
The carefully coordinated scene was captured on drone video (see below), which zoomed out to the dragon and the sleepy blue-gray of an early-morning cityscape.
All of the showmanship did the trick — Hunter said yes.
Like the dragon, the proposal had been planned for months.
Marksbury, who grew up in New Milford, says his team first got the call about Vhagar the dragon in March. Soon after, he started preparing to install the beast, factoring in wind, safety and other factors.
He expected to pop the question in July. But as Vhagar’s big unveiling approached this month, he already had the ring and felt he should move up the proposal to Hunter.
“After I got the thing up there, just the high of getting it done and just knowing that that was up there, I wanted to make her a part of it,” Marksbury told NJ Advance Media Monday, when he was still clearing dragon fabric from the building.
“I wanted to do it then to also get the dragon in the shot with my drone pilots,” he says.
The inflatable, created by Bigger Than Life Advertising for the “House of the Dragon” second season premiere on June 16, officially came down Friday.
“Thursday night we did the tail and it was a little too windy to get any other pieces,” Marksbury says.
A sunrise surprise
Hunter, 30, had her first look at the dragon on the day of its debut.
At the time, Marksbury was working long hours to ensure everything went to plan.
“We just had to watch it around the clock just in case an outlet tripped and we had to maybe turn another blower on in case it started to lose air,” he says.
So Marksbury invited Hunter back to the dragon for the proposal that Wednesday.
Vhagar looked striking against the green lights of the Empire State Building — another “House of the Dragon” promotion — but this would be no moonlit scene.
“I told her we were just gonna go watch the sunrise,” he says.
They’d have to wake up at about 1:30 a.m. to make it to the city, get harnesses on and step out of the hatch in time for the rise, which begins between 4:45 and 5 a.m. — “That’s when all the cool colors happen,” Marksbury says.
“When we woke up, I told her, ‘Why don’t you put on something nice,’” he says with a chuckle. “I think that might’ve gave it away a little bit.”
A month before, he had welcomed Hunter up to the ice deck — a lofty portion of the building inaccessible to the public — for the first time.
“She turned around and I just saw tears in her eyes,” Marksbury says. “She says ‘this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’ I think right then I knew that I wanted to do it up there at sunrise ... the most beautiful view over the Chrysler Building.”
He had prepared special black harnesses for the occasion, a classier option than the usual bright green or yellow.
Hunter, an aesthetician at Sperling Dermatology in Montclair and New York City, was going to wear her usual work outfit to report to her job in Manhattan after the visit.
Marksbury stopped her.
“I think that was the tell, because she then did her nails,” he says.
Despite the heavy hint, some element of surprise was still intact and tears were flowing when Marksbury got down on one knee.
Dragon vs. wind
Marksbury lives in Chestnut Ridge, New York, just over the border in Rockland County.
He met Hunter, who grew up in Boonton, about two and a half years ago at the Life Time health club in Montvale.
He’s been a rope access technician at the Empire State Building for nearly 20 years. Last year, he started his own venture at Jepol Industrial Rope Access.
“I’ve done so much work up there,” Marksbury says. “I removed all the old obsolete antennas and all steel work off the side of the mooring mast, waterproofed all the holes that were created to make those when they put them on and also painted the entire tower.”
His regular duties encompass work with masonry, windows, sealant, leaks, painting and light welding — “pretty much anything that can be done off ropes if they don’t need a crane or a scaffold,” he says.
Hunter is a kindred spirit when it comes to fitness and climbing. She’s no stranger to rock gyms, “but she’s never been up high like that,” Marksbury says.
“It’s definitely a little nerve-racking to her, knowing the type of stuff I’m out there doing, but she knows I’m completely safe and I’m smart and I don’t take risks .... well, huge risks.”
“Just as long as the rope doesn’t cut on an edge — like, say a sharp limestone or metal or any other super abrasive surface — then it is actually a very safe profession. You just have to trust your equipment and just double check everything.”
However, the dragon was a first for Marksbury, who had never worked with an inflatable before.
In 1983, a giant inflatable King Kong was installed at the top of the Empire State Building to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the movie, but the figure popped early on, then a second time after it was inflated again, deflating the whole endeavor.
Marksbury never watched an episode of “Game of Thrones” or “House of the Dragon,” but he didn’t want Vhagar the dragon to meet the same fate. The figure was significantly larger than the inflatable ape.
“I’ve done some pretty hairy stuff up there, but when they told me it was a dragon, the size of it, the first thing I thought is it’s gonna be a problem with the wind,” he says. “The wind up there is relentless all the time ... there’s no buildings around the Empire State Building to block it from the wind.”
Marksbury and his colleagues anchored the heavy dragon before inflating it. They worked with McLaren Engineering Group in Woodcliff Lake to confirm a plan for where to place the anchors.
“Just a sense of relief after having everything tied on was amazing,” he says.
“We did a lot of reinforcing of the structure ... and then we have about 200 different ropes that go out to the dragon from behind the wing and the neck to pull it in all different directions so the wind can’t push it one way too much,” he says. “It’s always gonna be under a little bit of tension.”
His souvenir from the week includes one engagement and a few other things from the female dragon.
“I got her tongue and two teeth,” Marksbury says. “Now I’m getting messages. ‘Can I get a tooth? Can I get a claw?’”
Now that his dragon adventure is over, he plans to check out the TV series, created by fellow Jersey guys George R.R. Martin and Ryan Condal.
But the legend of the Empire State Building dragon lives on.
The rest of the creature is being transformed into tote bags.
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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup.
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