Month: October 2020

Last week I featured the work of New York’s Mad Bomber. This week we look at another case where radical students turned a New York townhouse into a bomb factory. But this time, the bombers themselves were the victims.

Explosions in Greenwich Village

West 11th Street at the edge of New York City’s Greenwich Village is normally quiet. Expensive townhouses crowd the picturesque, tree-lined street. But shortly before noon on Friday, March 6, 1970, West 11th Street shuddered with a violent explosion. The blast came from the quaint townhouse at number 18, which began to burn furiously.

Authorities first suspected that natural gas leak had caused the explosion. But they quickly determined that the ruptured gas mains were a result of the explosion, not its cause. Besides, the blaze didn’t look like a natural gas fire. As Chief of Detectives Al Seedman later remarked, the townhouse burned “like an ammo dump.”

Sorting Through the Rubble

After the firefighters finally extinguished the fire, investigators began to sift through the ruins. They discovered an improvised bomb factory in the basement of the townhouse. Cathy Wilkerson, the daughter of the building’s owner, belonged to the radical-left Weather Underground. Unhappy with the limited success of Molotov cocktails, Wilkerson and some of her colleagues decided to use dynamite bombs instead. To make them especially lethal, the bombmakers packed the dynamite with roofing nails so that deadly shrapnel would accompany an explosion.

There was some disagreement later as to precisely what the bombers planned to target. One candidate was a scheduled dance for non-commissioned officers at nearby Fort Dix in New Jersey. Another was the main library of Columbia University. The dispute was largely academic since the “factory” blew up before the Weathermen could plant any bombs.

The investigation revealed that on March 2, someone using stolen identification bought two 50-pound cases of dynamite in rural Keene, New Hampshire. The dynamite ended up at 18 West 11th along with blasting caps and a 1916 37-mm antitank shell.

The Bombmakers

Two young people, 28-year-old Diana Oughton and 22-year-old Terry Robbins were assembling crude bombs in the basement. Neither Robbins nor Oughton had any experience handling explosives. Nor did they have even a rudimentary knowledge of electricity. Consequently, they failed to incorporate any safety features in their bomb circuitry. As they taped nails to sticks of dynamite something went wrong.

Perhaps the inexperienced Robbins had crossed wires but for whatever reason, a bomb prematurely detonated, killing the pair instantly. A third person, Theodore “Ted” Gold died when the building’s exterior collapsed onto him. Wilkerson and a fifth person, Kathy Boudin, escaped with cuts and bruises and went into hiding.

Wilkerson remained underground for a decade before she surrendered to authorities in 1980. Boudin also remained underground and continued her radical activities. Police arrested her in the aftermath of a botched armed robbery in Nanuet, New York.

Epilogue

The lot at 18 West 11th remained vacant for a few years but a new townhouse was built on the site in 1978. Although it blends well into the tony neighborhood, it has a distinctly different appearance from the 1840s Greek Revival architecture of the neighboring buildings. In 2012, it sold for $9.2 million.

This week I write about a string of bombings that terrorized New York City for sixteen years. Unlike last week’s case, no one died, which was something of a miracle. When the public realized that a serial bomber was at work, they and the newspapers dubbed him the Mad Bomber.

The First Bombs

The first bomb surfaced on November 16, 1940. It was crude, a brass tube filled with gunpowder. Someone discovered it before it could go off. Perhaps the Mad Bomber didn’t intend for it to explode, because he wrapped in a note that an explosion would have destroyed. The note, printed in block capitals, read, “CON EDISON CROOKS—THIS IS FOR YOU” and was signed, “F.P.”

The first bomb and a similar one discovered in September 1941 attracted little public attention. Then shortly after the United States entered World War II, New York police received a note. This one, also printed in block capitals and signed, “F.P,” promised to plant no more bombs for the duration of the war.

The bomber was as good as his word. Instead of bombs, he sent crank letters to the police and to Consolidated Edison.

The Mad Bomber Returns

Nearly a decade after Pearl Harbor, on March 29, 1951, a small bomb exploded in Grand Central Terminal. The bomber had dropped his device in a sand urn near the Oyster Bar in the terminal’s lower level. There were no injuries, but it marked the return of the Mad Bomber.

Between 1951 and 1957, the Mad Bomber left at least 33 explosive devices in public places. Twenty-two of them exploded injuring 15 people. The bomber’s favorite locations included the Grand Central and Pennsylvania railroad terminals, the New York Public Library, Radio City Music Hall, movie theaters, and subway stations.

As the bomb count rose, the public naturally became more uneasy. But police were unable to make significant headway towards discovering the identity of the bomber. It was apparent from notes that the bomber left with some of the bombs that he harbored a grudge against Consolidated Edison, the large electric utility. But that was hardly enough to narrow the field of suspects. And the bombs kept exploding.

A Pioneering “Portrait”

Police captain John Cronin asked his friend, psychiatrist James A. Brussel to meet with detectives. Working with the detectives, Brussel developed what he called a “portrait” of the bomber. Today we would call it an offender psychological profile.

After carefully studying crime scene photos, Brussel created his “portrait” of the bomber. Then as now, the profile did little to identify the bomber in a city of millions. But it would help police recognize him when they found him. Newspapers published the profile on Christmas Day 1956.

Con Ed clerk Alice Kelly read the profile. She dug through the company’s workers’ compensation files looking for employees with serious injuries. She came across one that included phrases the bomber had used in letters to the New York Journal-American. The name in the file was George P. Metesky. Police arrested him at the home in Waterbury, Connecticut that he shared with two unmarried sisters.

George Peter Metesky

George Metesky began working for Con Ed in 1929. On September 5, 1931, he was working as a generator wiper at the company’s generating station at Hell Gate. A boiler backfired, knocking Metesky down and filling his lungs with fumes. Con Ed denied his worker’s compensation claim and discharged him after 26 weeks of sick leave. Metesky felt the company had unfairly denied his claim. He also believed that several coworkers had perjured their testimony in his compensation case to favor the company.

Feeling that Consolidated Edison and the city had ignored him, Metesky decided his only option was to attract public attention. He decided to do this by planting “units” (he never called them “bombs”) around the city. When asked why he signed his notes “F.P.,” Metesky replied that it stood for “Fair Play.”

Metesky admitted to placing 32 bombs and a grand jury indicted him on 47 counts, including attempted murder. However, he never went to trial. Judge Samuel Leibowitz declared him a paranoid schizophrenic and confined him to the Matteawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane. His lung ailment was so severe that orderlies had to carry him into the hospital.

Epilogue

Metesky responded well to treatment and recovered his health. In 1973, a decision by the United States Supreme Court forced the State of New York to move him to Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, which is outside the state correctional system.

Doctors at Creedmoor determined that the former Mad Bomber was now harmless. They released him on December 13, 1973. He returned to his home in Waterbury. The only condition was that he make regular visits to a Connecticut Department of Mental Hygiene clinic near his home. He died in Waterbury on May 23, 1994 at age 90.