The Mad Bomber of New York (12 page)

In the moment of his near-apprehension, Metesky was not content to declare victory and cease operations, happy to escape with his freedom. Empowered by the feeling that he had once again outsmarted the authorities, he simply decided to arm his future units within the safe confines of his private garage and out of broad daylight, prior to his trips to New York. Satisfied that he had taken effective measures to decrease his risk of capture, Metesky's brush with danger had an evolutionary side effect. He was now free to increase the size and intensity of his devices.

Though Metesky would strike only three times in 1954, each of his bombs would prove dangerously effective, and the injuries began to mount.

A blast in the lower-level men's washroom of Grand Central Terminal on March 16, timed precisely for the start of the heavily traveled rush hour, slammed fragments of iron and debris into several porcelain fixtures, causing extensive damage and sending three commuters to the hospital for treatment of shock and bruises. The explosion echoed through the depot, causing hundreds to rush toward the sound in a “fervor of excitement” and prompting the washroom attendant to complain, “My ears are still deaf.”

And true to his vow, Metesky did return to Radio City Music Hall—this time with injurious results. During a 1954 pre-holiday viewing of Bing Crosby's
White Christmas,
a “crude, home-made time bomb” ripped through a seat cushion in row 14 of the orchestra level, sending a concussive sound through the auditorium, “as if a big electric bulb had been broken.” The capacity audience of 6,200 that had crammed into the orchestra level as well as three balconies of the theater were confused and panicked by the commotion, and four patrons received an array of puncture wounds and contusions that required a trip to the hospital for treatment.

As was the usual case with Metesky's bombings, the actual damage to the facility was fairly limited but the disruption was immense. He was aware of the popularity of the musical and had purposefully chosen the busy Sunday evening showing as his target to maximize the effect. “All seats were taken and there were a number of standees in the auditorium, while a line numbering about a thousand stretched through the lobby and into the street,” wrote the
Herald Tribune.

Within moments of the blast, police cars from the 16th squad on West Fifty-fourth Street, ambulances from Roosevelt Hospital, bomb squad vehicles, the mobile laboratory unit, and four fire engines together with two hook-and-ladder companies from Engine 3 converged on Rockefeller Center. As the injured were removed from the theater and the immediate area surrounding the blast was roped off pending a detailed search and examination, firefighters and police detectives, including Deputy Chief Inspector Edward Byrnes, a veteran New York cop in charge of the Manhattan West detectives known for his calm and efficient demeanor, quieted fears and quelled what could have grown into full-blown chaos. Among the jagged bomb fragments recovered from the scene under the direction of Inspector Byrnes was a small generic wristwatch and the remains of a cylindrical battery casing that surely formed the familiar firing mechanism of this latest device.

Mere weeks after the second Radio City bombing, thirty New York police officers and bomb squad detectives again rushed to the Eighth Avenue Port Authority Bus Terminal, where a bomb had detonated in a telephone booth, driving metal fragments and debris through a pedestrian corridor and startling throngs of weekend bus travelers. A Port Authority attendant and Navy veteran, in the process of checking the lights in the “suburban concourse” telephone booths, threw himself facedown on the ground upon hearing the blast, then, regaining his composure, rose and contacted the authorities.

Investigators easily identified the shattered bus terminal bomb components as similar in style and design to those used at Radio City and in prior bombing incidents throughout Manhattan. With each new episode, detectives were learning more and more about the infernal machinist that plagued their city.

As Metesky's bombings grew more brash and potent, local as well as national newspapers would find it very difficult to ignore what was occurring around New York City. By the start of 1955, the requested and hitherto honored police policy of secrecy would ultimately be sacrificed in the name of circulation. Front page stories with inflammatory headlines began appearing in tabloid papers and broadsheets alike, chronicling the bombings—and, in the process, unnerving everyday New Yorkers. Soon, feeding on this air of anxiety, the New York scandal sheets would designate a moniker for the disgruntled miscreant who imposed his resentment and rage upon the citizens of Manhattan. They began calling him the “Mad Bomber.”

VI
CHASING SHADOWS

N
OW
, M
ETESKY'S PACE BEGAN TO QUICKEN AND CONFUSION SEEMED TO
reign within the press as well as throughout the floundering police force. On January 11, 1955, he struck Penn Station during the evening rush hour, blowing a two-inch gouge into a concrete wall and sending clouds of smoke billowing through the lower level of the terminal. As detectives cordoned off the surrounding area and conducted a detailed search for fragments and additional devices, Metesky placed a telephone call to the switchboard operator of Grand Central Station, warning that a bomb had been placed in a coin-operated locker on the south side of the building and that it would detonate in fifteen minutes. A frenzied team of thirty additional officers rushed to the scene and conducted a painstaking search that turned up nothing.

Though there were no injuries from the Penn Station blast, the New York newspapers were almost comically inconsistent with their descriptions of the effect the bombing had on the public. Clearly torn between their responsibility to report the news and their desire to honor the continued police requests to play down the details, the
New York Times
buried the story with the restrained headline “Penn Station Bomb Blast Is Ignored by Commuters.” The effusive
New York Daily News
, however, brought the story to page 3 with the lead “Bomb Goes Off, Panics LI Rush-Hour Throng.” And, in a clear attempt to compromise, the
New York Herald Tribune
, though placing the story at the bottom of page 1, went with the less controversial “Penn Station Bomb Startles Commuters.” Two months later, the New York newspapers similarly reported on another of Metesky's Penn Station bombings, but it was, ironically, an unexploded device planted by him, again at Radio City Music Hall, that would capture the attention—and fears—of the city.

At 5:34 on the evening of May 2, 1955, an editor of the
New York Herald Tribune
received an anonymous phone call from a man who informed him that a bomb had been placed at Radio City. The voice, bristling with anger, insisted that the act was carried out “to get even with the Consolidated Edison Co.” Within minutes, an army of sixty firemen, police officers, and bomb squad detectives converged upon the theater, roped off the area, and, for the next hour and a half, conducted an extensive search of the premises. The investigation yielded nothing, and detectives nervously reopened the theater to movie patrons, concluding that the scare had been nothing but another maddening false alarm.

Later that evening, after the theater had closed and the cleaning crew had begun its nightly task of removing candy wrappers and soda cups from the seats and floors of the auditorium, one of the workers, while scouring the floor beneath seat 125 of the orchestra section, banged into a strange object with his mop handle. With curiosity aroused, the worker knelt down to investigate and there spotted what an extensive ninety-minute police search had failed to reveal: the Mad Bomber's latest creation wrapped in a red wool men's sock.

For the second time that evening, police and emergency personnel descended upon Radio City Music Hall. With the usual array of armored bomb squad detectives and equipment on hand, the neatly capped three-and-a-half-inch length of galvanized iron pipe was removed from the premises and transported to a deserted area near the waterfront at West Fifty-third Street, where it was examined and guarded by technicians. As morning approached, the device was brought to the stark concrete military bunkers of Fort Tilden, Queens, a United States Army installation commonly shared with local police for the storing and dismantling of the Bomber's creations.

After three days at Fort Tilden it was determined by squad detectives that the bomb could be safely defused. An option that earlier had been considered and rejected was the use of a so-called “shaped charge” to direct a quick and controlled explosion specifically focused on the end cap of the device, thereby opening the bomb and exposing its undamaged inner workings. While the technique worked in theory, oftentimes the intense charge would have the unintended result of exploding the bomb itself, and it was therefore considered too risky to attempt under the circumstances. In short, the detectives simply did not want to risk a rare opportunity to inspect the Bomber's latest handiwork.

Using specially fashioned tools, squad detective William Schmitt slowly unscrewed one of the iron plugs, careful to avoid the possibility of a detonative spark. With the device open and its mechanics exposed, he cautiously removed the wires running to the battery, thereby neutralizing the bomb.

Once deactivated, the technicians examined the familiar design and components of the device and confirmed what they already knew: the bomb was the creation of the same individual that had eluded them for years. Fortunately for the 4,500 moviegoers who were in attendance that evening at Radio City Music Hall, the timing mechanism of the device, set for 6:30 p.m., had malfunctioned. A defect in the cheap watch chosen by the Bomber had caused it to stop dead before the hour hand could reach its baleful point of contact. The intact bomb now held by police, however, would serve as a roadmap for the future of the investigation—and an unintended turning point in public awareness of the case.

Further police analysis would reveal that the Radio City bomb, as was the case with most of Metesky's other devices, was capable of causing death or serious injury to anyone in proximity had it detonated, and the police department officially branded it a “lethal weapon.” The New York media—television, radio, and print—were quick to react with detailed and inflammatory coverage. Unlike the newspapers' treatment of the prior incidents, there was nothing equivocal or restrained in the reporting of the attempted Radio City bombing. The
New York Journal-American
chillingly proclaimed, “Radio City Bomb Found to Be Deadly,” while the front page banner headline of the
Mirror
shrieked, “City Hunts Mad Bomb Planter.” And across America, the wire services informed anxious readers of a “Mad Bomber Being Hunted in New York.”

As the doings of the Mad Bomber became more public and the citizens of New York more uneasy, the pressure on the New York City Police Department to make an arrest began to increase. Some of the top brass of the department, including deputy chief inspector Edward Byrnes, chief of detectives James Leggett, inspector in charge of technical services Edward Fagan, captain in charge of the police laboratory Howard Finney, and even police commissioner Stephen Kennedy himself, assumed greater organizational roles and became more involved in the day-to-day activities and decisions of the investigation as opposed to mere policy making. From a detailed study of the bombings, these officials knew that the “diabolical genius,” as he was called by one New York newspaper, was capable on a whim of dramatically increasing the size and potency of his bombs and even attacking a bridge or a crowded train. A palpable fear began to stir in the city of New York, and a growing frustration brewed within the police department. The Mad Bomber needed to be stopped.

In the coming months of 1955, as New Yorkers nervously went about their business, infernal machines continued to turn up throughout the city. In August, a cheap pocketknife and an ominous-looking length of pipe wrapped in a wool sock slipped from a tear in a movie seat as it was being repaired by an upholsterer at the Roxy Theatre. Though unexploded, the bomb caused the usual ruckus and traffic snarls, as detectives, using their steel-mesh envelope, whisked the device out of the building with five hundred curious bystanders looking on from behind police lines. The signature dud had been left by Metesky some two years earlier and had remained undetected since then. In October, a man was slightly injured as a bomb exploded in the twelfth row of the Paramount Theatre in Times Square during an evening showing of
Blood Alley
, and in December, emergency crews dispersed a large crowd of rush-hour commuters in Grand Central Terminal who had gathered for a look after an explosion ripped through the upper level in the main men's lavatory
.