Fly-Men: The Interwar Daredevils of Poland
In Interwar Poland there were two celebrated building climbers who thanks to their unusual skills earned the nickname of ‘fly-man.’ They organised ticketed events and performed risky feats to the amusement of crowds. Aside from climbing buildings they also did things like jumping from rooftops or… between flying airplanes!
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The skyscrapres LIM (Marriot Hotel) and Intraco (Elektrim), Warsaw, photo: Andrzej Pisarski
In the present day it’s not uncommon to hear about daredevils climbing the exteriors of buildings. For example, in 2019 the media reported that Poland’s Marcin Banot climbed all the way to the top of the 140-metre-tall Marriot Hotel in Warsaw. He managed to do this in about 20 minutes flat, using only his hands and feet, with no safety equipment involved. A video of this feat, which isn’t a thing for the faint-hearted, can be found online.
There are many other building climbers across the world and their risky exploits, which at times fall under the category of trespassing, draw plenty of attention. Actually, the practice of climbing buildings is called buildering and it’s believed it was first described in the 1899 book The Roof-Climber's Guide to Trinity by British alpinist Geoffrey Winthrop Young.
Jumping between airplanes
Stefan Poliński climbing a building in Dietla Street, photo: szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl In the Interwar period, when buildering wasn’t quite as popular as it is today, there were two celebrated building climbers in Poland. Due to their unusual skills the press gave them both the insect-inspired nickname ‘Fly-Man.’ The first of this duo to rise to prominence was Stefan Poliński.
He was born in 1904 in the town of Bielsko (now part of Bielsko-Biała) into a wealthy family – his father was a successful sawmill owner. Poliński’s reckless nature manifested itself at an early age. When he was 13 years old, he robbed his father and, with his money, decided to head for the United States. By the time Poliński got on board a ship sailing to America his money had run out, which prompted him to get a job as a deckhand. That’s when he learned how to climb masts.
The young Pole reached Ellis Island but was denied entry to the United States. He was turned back and had to return to Europe. He made his way to Hamburg where, thanks to his newly-acquired climbing skills, he found employment as a circus acrobat. As such, he gained great popularity and performed under the pseudonym Ralph Ursus Stefano in Prague, Berlin and other European cities. Eventually, he came back to Poland where he began performing under his own name. Here’s a fragment of an interview Poliński gave the Warsaw-based ABC newspaper in 1927:
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I can fly from one rooftop to another, from house to house, from balcony to balcony. I’ve come to demonstrate this. I’m Polish, I was born in Bielsko in Upper Silesia. I’m almost 23 years old. I can be buried alive in the ground for 15 minutes, I break chains in a matter of minutes, I can put stones of great weight on my chest, I jump onto balconies from great heights, and in a fight I can break the neck of any bull.
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From radiokrakow.pl, trans. MK
In Poland Poliński organised ticketed performances that attracted plenty of spectators and media attention. During his shows he mainly climbed buildings and performed acrobatic tricks. In Kraków, for example, he climbed the building of the primary school on Dietla Street. In Warsaw, he jumped from the roof of a five-storey building onto an adjacent house’s fourth-storey balcony. Also, according to the biweekly Kurier Galicyjski, he jumped from one high-flying airplane to another, as 50,000 people gathered at a Warsaw airstrip watched.
A press clipping about the death of Stefan Poliński, photo: public domain Poliński’s career came to an abrupt end in the year 1928. On 15th January he was scheduled to give a show in the then Polish city of Lwów (Lviv in today’s Ukraine). Plenty of people came to Akademicka Street to watch the celebrated ‘fly-man’ – a camera was even present to record his daring exploits.
Poliński managed to successfully climb the exterior of a tenement house on that street. He then went onto a rope stretched between the roof of that building and the roof of a house on the opposite side of the street. He managed to get to the other side, but then… he slipped. Tragically, Poliński fell from the rooftop and suffered serious injuries. He died a few hours later at the hospital. The footage from this sad event seems to have gone missing – perhaps for the best.
The death of Poliński shocked the Lwów public. Urban legends began to pop up and led to the creation of urban folk songs about him. The best known of these tunes is perhaps Akrobata-Mucha (The Fly-Acrobat) by the noted poet and songwriter Marian Hemar. The artist based this song on an already existing tune by an anonymous author:
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To Lviv came the acrobat, known as the fly
He fell from a roof to the ground and died…
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From staremelodie.pl, trans. MK
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Feliks Nazarewicz on a bicycle on a roof, photo: szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl
The year Poliński died another building climber caught the attention of the public eye in Poland. In October 1928 there was a large fire in the Dąbie neighbourhood in Kraków. A tall building was burning (historians aren’t sure which one exactly) and the fireman extinguishing the blaze got trapped on the structure’s top floor. The flames had cut off his escape route. Fortunately, a man by the name of Feliks Nazarewicz wanted to help. He climbed the exterior of the burning building carrying a rope with him. He reached the trapped firemen and then lowered the rope, which they used to get to safety.
Nazarewicz was born on 20th May 1905 and little is known about his life up to 1928. This heroic deed made him famous and jump-started his buildering career. Much like Poliński, he organised ticketed events across Poland. It’s unclear whether Nazarewicz was inspired by Poliński but the press gave him the same nickname the deceased daredevil had – ‘fly man.’
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In every city [Nazarewicz] visited climbed characteristic buildings without any safety gear, using his bare hands; his performances usually ended with him jumping onto a large sheet stretched above the ground.
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From tvn24.pl, trans. MK
In Kraków, Nazarewicz made it all the way up to the spire embellishing one of the domes on top of the three-storey Railroad Office building at 12 Jan Matejko Square. In Warsaw, he rode a bicycle along the edge of a roof and then jumped onto a sheet from the third floor. He also successfully performed in other towns such as Zamość and Lublin. In the latter, he climbed the exterior of a four-storey tenement house on Kościuszki Street.
Feliks Nazarewicz climbing a building in Ossolińskich Street in Warsaw, 1929, photo: szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl Not all of Poliński’s shows were successful; he disappointed his crowds numerous times. He let down his audience, for instance, at the Polish General Exhibition in Poznań in 1929. This massive event presented the economic, cultural and scientific achievements of Poland from the first decade of the country’s regained independence. The exhibition, which was organised over 65 hectares of land, lasted for over three months and 4.5 million tickets were sold.
On 27th July 1929 Poliński was supposed to climb the 26-metre-high Artificial Fertilizers Pavilion using only his hands and legs, and then jump from the top of it onto a sheet. The pavilion was the tallest structure at the Polish General Exhibition – it symbolised the high crops one could obtain using domestic fertilizers. But when the large crowd gathered to witness Nazarewicz’s performance, they saw something else entirely.
The daredevil used a rope to guide himself up the pavilion and, after reaching the top, refused to jump. Here’s how this situation was described by the Kurier Poznański newspaper:
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Minutes were passing, half an hour went by and Nazarewicz kept postponing doing the tirck he had announced. The audience was starting to get angry when, suddenly, the ‘fly-man’ began to prepare for the jump. Everybody held their breath, meanwhile Nazarewicz calmly sat down on the roof. Such ploys caused laughter among the large audience, but the crowd also made sounds of annoyance.
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From tvn24.pl, trans. MK
Feliks Nazarewicz posing for photos on a rooftop, 1928, photo: szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl After about an hour of such hesitations Nazarewicz decided to descend from the roof of the pavilion using a ladder. Naturally, the crowd – who had paid to see him jump – was disappointed with this turn of events. The audience even started to threaten the showman and, as a result, Nazarewicz had to be escorted by the police to his car. Later, he explained that he didn’t feel well and simply couldn’t perform the jump.
Two months after these events Nazarewicz was to climb a three-storey tenement house in Łódź and jump from its roof. But, once again, he didn’t deliver on his promises. He only reached the building’s second floor at which point he entered an apartment through an open window. He later left the building via a staircase and had to flee from the angry crowd seeking revenge on him for tricking them out of their money. Once again he was saved by the police who, on this occasion, detained him.
Despite such blunders Nazarewicz kept performing. The last time the press reported about a show of his was in 1937, when he was scheduled to climb a house in Łódź. Apparently, by then the local public had forgiven him for his disappointing 1929 appearance. Nazarewicz survived World War II but never climbed any buildings again. Instead, he… began writing horoscopes. He passed away on 20th February 1967.
Today Nazarewicz and Poliński are both remembered as pioneers of Polish urban climbing. The photographs and tales of their daredevil feats, even though dating back to just roughly a century ago, still continue to amaze.
Written by Marek Kępa, Oct 21
Based on Radio Kraków’s 2021 interview with dr. Arkadiusz Więch of the Institute of History of the Jagiellonian University.
