The Mad Bomber of New York (11 page)

Then he moves to another section of the theater and watches the show. As the theater fills up, and the early customers begin to leave—and the time for the explosion draws near—the machinist gets up, tags along behind someone who is leaving, and vanishes.

On December 8, 1952, Metesky's second bomb at the Lexington Theatre exploded and, for the first time, a patron was injured. A woman, innocently watching MGM's song and dance film production of
Everything I Have Is Yours
, was struck with shards of metal and debris that caused several deep lacerations on her feet and legs.

As a result of the official policy of secrecy and a police request that the particulars of the bombings be kept from the public, few, if any, details of the injuries at the Lexington Theatre, or any of the other 1952 incidents, found their way into the newspapers. Metesky wouldn't even learn if his devices had exploded—let alone injure anyone—for months to come.

There were no duds in 1952, and the bombs seemed to be growing in power and causing more and more damage. By the start of 1953, Metesky began to experiment again with flashlight bulbs and batteries (as opposed to .25-caliber bullets), as he had done in the 1940s, to mechanize his bombs. His decision to continue use of the infamous throat lozenge disc as a timer device, however, would be one that he would soon come to regret.

The “sweeping arches” and “choral staircases” that punctuated the largest indoor theater in the world adorned an architectural and entertainment icon. “Everything about Radio City Music Hall is outsized—from its sixty-foot-high foyer to its two-ton chandeliers . . . to its Wurlitzer organ (the mightiest on earth, with fifty-six separate sets of pipes),” wrote one observer. Dubbed the “American People's Palace,” Radio City combined stunning Art Deco design with an affordable price of admission. The hall initially opened in 1932 with the intention of featuring splendid stage shows, but when the gala debut met with failure, Radio City immediately shifted to movie presentations. Since then, hundreds of film classics, such as
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, An American in Paris,
and
Singin' in the Rain
, would premier at the hall, “virtually [guaranteeing] a successful run in theatres around the country.” As George Metesky stole into the nearly 6,000-seat auditorium on the afternoon of March 10, 1953, however, his mind was far from the elegant surroundings of the house or the movie themes that filled it.

With his latest creation safely wrapped in a signature red wool sock and stowed in the pocket of his overcoat, Metesky casually took a seat in row L of the orchestra section of the hall. He had previously armed his four-and-a-half-inch galvanized pipe bomb with a quantity of black powder and a throat lozenge timing mechanism carefully calibrated by a measure of water to create a defined rate of dissolution. At a voluble moment of the movie presentation,
The Story of Three Loves
, when he was certain that all eyes would be fixed on the screen, Metesky removed a pocketknife from his overcoat and ripped a hole into the undercushion of the seat next to him. At an awkward slant, he reached underneath and, with a dexterous backhanded scoop, thrust the bomb and the knife into the gap, where he left both. A few moments later he was headed out of the auditorium and toward the lobby.

Though an ingenious fusing apparatus, Metesky's use of the throat lozenge wafer was fraught with danger—and he knew it. For the most part he could predict fairly well when the disc would dissolve, thereby triggering the detonation, but the variables, such as degrees of thickness and measures of water, could also prove imprecise. The result was often a somewhat unstable and unpredictable timing mechanism. In short, though he had performed experiment after experiment and perfected the system as best he could, there was really no sure way to predict the exact moment of detonation.

As Metesky reached the exit doors of the Radio City auditorium, his bomb exploded much earlier than planned. The blast—a “funny” sound—echoed off the eighty-four-foot ceilings and through the hall. “[It] sounded like a rocket. It went zzzzzz—BANG!” recalled Metesky. Realizing what had happened and beginning to hear the harried sounds of confusion, if not panic, behind him, he rushed from the theater. As he passed through the lobby, Metesky was detained by the sudden grasp of an usher who had caught hold of his arm. He froze in near panic.

“We're sorry about this sir. We regret the inconvenience.”

Eyes squinting with quizzical amazement, Metesky freed himself from the usher's grip and nervously informed him that he was fine but that he still wished to leave. Foisting a free movie pass into his hand, the man urged him to please come back at a later date and promised that it would never happen again. As Metesky exited Radio City Music Hall, the wailing sound of police cars converging on the building had already begun. He smiled and whispered to himself,
If I come back, it' ll happen again all right.

The morning newspapers played down the Radio City incident, calling it a “mild ‘pop'” and noting that the device caused little damage and no injuries. The
Herald Tribune
attributed the bomb to the work of a “psychopath,” and weeks later, when Metesky struck at Penn Station and yet again at Grand Central Terminal, blowing apart a locker on the lower commuter level of the latter, the
New York Times
, quoting the police, described him as a “publicity-seeking jerk” and a “mental case.”

Metesky was outraged by the statements of the press and by their lack of detailed reporting on his bombings. Unceasingly self-consumed and utterly narcissistic, he vowed to show the world that he meant business. He would now sharpen and advance his campaign of terror—and, once again, focus the world's attention on the malevolence of the evil Con Ed.

EDITOR + STAFF OF N.Y. HERALD TRIBUNE: UNLESS SLOPPY OR NO REPORTING IS CORRECTED ABOUT BOMBINGS—PUBLIC WILL GET INFORMATION BY WAY OF MOSCOW.

GET THIS INTO YOUR HEADS—THE CONSOLIDATED EDISON CO. WILL BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE. ALL OF MY PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND FINANCIAL SUFFERINGS WILL BE PAID FOR IN FULL.

YOU KNOW THAT BOMBS ARE GETTING BIGGER. SO FAR— THE HAND OF GOD—HAS SPARED EVERYONE FROM DEATH OR SERIOUS INJURY. BELIEVE ME—I KNOW.

IN THE PRESS, NOW AND THEN I AM CALLED A “BAD NAME.” JUST WHAT NAME FITS YOU PEOPLE WHO DENIED ME THE PURCHASE OF “SPACE” TO TELL MY STORY—YOU WHO ARE TO [SIC] “YELLOW” TO PRINT THE FACTS WHICH CONCERN THE SAFETY OF SO MANY?

I AM BEWILDERED BY YOUR ATTITUDE. I CAN ONLY RESPOND WITH MORE AND LARGER BOMBS. EVERY DAY THAT PASSES—MEANS A DAY CLOSER TO ANOTHER BOMB

The return address on the envelope of Metesky's letter of May 24, 1953, read simply:

CONSOLIDATED EDISON CO.
4 IRVING PLACE
NEW YORK CITY

With the narrow escape of the Radio City bombing and the antagonism of the New York press harping at his mind, Metesky resolved to draw attention to his crusade through increasingly more powerful and effective bombs, albeit with safeguards in place to avoid risk of detection. His next bombing, that of the Capitol Theatre, his last of 1953, would represent the final installment of his earlier small-scale and unpredictable design.

At home in his garage Metesky developed a safer, more reliable timing mechanism based on inexpensive and untraceable wristwatches, to replace the erratic throat lozenge method that had failed him at Radio City. Removing the second hand, he was able to accurately set his devices for up to twelve hours by simply dialing the hour hand to the desired interval from the contact point. Once the designated time had passed and the terminal connection was made, the charge from the battery would surge through a circuit and into the powder contained in the flashlight bulb, thereby exploding the larger cache within the bomb itself. It was a design the New York City Police Crime Laboratory and bomb squad detectives would become all too familiar with in the coming years.

Though undeterred in his overall mission, the incident at Radio City had raised Metesky's threat awareness, prompting him to take other extraordinary measures to avoid detection, some divorced from logical reality. He was compulsively “careful and wary as a cat,” later observed one newspaper, and, therefore, arrogantly sure of himself.

On one occasion, he spotted an advertisement in a New York newspaper offering wristwatches from a discount store at bargain prices. The hyper-suspicious Metesky haughtily laughed at the ad and tore it to shreds, certain that it was a police trap set specifically for him. The component parts of his bombs were commonplace items that could be purchased almost anywhere, and he took pains to avoid buying from the same store more than once or twice. He would not be unnecessarily drawn to any particular outlet to make his purchases, let alone one that he was sure had conspired with Con Ed and the police to snare him.

On another occasion, he was traveling on a New York subway when he spied a woman sitting opposite him holding a handbag connected to a shoulder strap. Convinced that this was the trademark of a New York policewoman, Metesky got off at the next stop—and when the woman did as well, he
knew
that she was following him. Before he could panic and begin running, however, she turned a corner and was gone.

Paranoiac idiosyncrasies aside, Metesky's endeavors obviously entailed the balancing of actual and grave dangers. The Radio City incident had proven this. He never risked apprehension by driving erratically or above the speed limit when he carried a bomb in his car, and he frequently parked far from his targets, opting to take the subway to the targeted areas to avoid the linking of his car in any way to the crime scenes. In each of his missions through 1952 and a portion of 1953, he had carried a container of explosive powder with him and armed the fully constructed bombs in his car prior to boarding the subway. This method ensured that he wasn't transporting an armed explosive device any longer than was absolutely necessary—but it also presented a risk that would, on one afternoon, materialize into near disaster.

Sitting in his car on Ninety-sixth Street, Metesky readied an iron coupling for use against his chosen Manhattan target of that day. He quickly eyed the rearview mirror and reached for the vial of black powder that was safely stowed beneath his bench seat. As he began pouring the powder into the pipe casing to arm the bomb, a New York police officer pulled alongside the car and eyed its occupant. Nervously, Metesky had settled the bomb between his feet and readied himself to turn the ignition and hit the gas when the officer informed him that he was parked in a restricted zone. With a gasp of euphoric relief, Metesky apologized for the infraction and, exercising due care, left the parking spot and headed for home. “I thought my number was up,” Metesky would later say. “I was so frightened I could hardly speak.”