The Mad Bomber of New York (7 page)

By the start of 1934, George Metesky had been repeatedly frustrated by what he viewed as the insolence and arrogance of the Con Ed conglomerate. As part of the company's attempt to stop the unrelenting volley of communications, they sent Metesky an Industrial Commission form to be completed as the first step in the process of requesting workmen's compensation benefits.

Recognizing that Con Ed was not going to resume his sick pay, Metesky filed his initial claim with the compensation board on January 4, 1934. In it, he provided a detailed description of his September 1931 accident at the Hell Gate station, making out, in his view, a clear and compelling case for compensation payments. A hearing was scheduled for May 24, 1934, but was delayed as a result of Metesky's residence in Arizona and consequent inability to appear. The matter again came up for hearing on September 27, 1934, and this time the board summarily dismissed the claim in Metesky's absence. As justification, section 28 of New York's Workmen's Compensation Act was cited.

Of the many legalities that would confront George Metesky in the coming years, none would frustrate and confound him more than the provisions of section 28. In the 1930s, the section imposed a one-year statute of limitations on claims for compensation benefits; any claim, to be considered viable, had to be filed within one year from the date of injury or be subject to dismissal. Since Metesky had delayed his filing well beyond the imposed one-year period, his claim was doomed from the start.

Upon being notified of the board's rejection of his claim, Metesky inquired as to the reasons and was informed that Con Ed and its insurance carrier had, in fact, invoked the time limitations of section 28. The merits of his case—the injustice of his circumstances
—
had, to his indignation, never even been broached at the hearing. He had been lulled to sleep by Con Ed in the days following his accident. He was convinced that his obstreperous former employer had purposefully pacified him until it was too late to assert a claim for compensation.

By the spring of 1935, Metesky had been forced to abandon his treatment in Arizona and had returned home to Waterbury. Though his health had fairly stabilized, he was instructed to continue bed rest with minimal physical activity. In his mind, a job was still out of the question. Dwindling finances had forced the move and, according to Metesky, the unscrupulous Con Ed and an uncaring state compensation system were the cause.

Once home in Connecticut, the letter-writing campaign, which had now expanded to include members of the New York State Industrial Commission and its chief, Elmer Andrews, and even the governor of New York, Herbert Lehman, accelerated and became unbendingly fixed on securing a new hearing in which his grievances could be heard. Surely, mused Metesky, when the true facts emerged, his claim would be embraced and allowed by any fair-minded judge or jury.

As rambling and passionate as his letters were to that point, they contained no intimidation or hints of violence. His communiqués to public officials included prods and bold demands for intervention against Con Ed and the compensation board, but were not in any way viewed as dangerous or threatening. Though the sheer volume was somewhat disconcerting, the letters were reviewed, and in early 1936 Metesky was granted a reconsideration hearing.

This time he was present at the hearing and was represented by a Brooklyn attorney named Michael Jackowitz, but to Metesky's dismay, the result was the same. Con Ed again asserted section 28, and again the claim was abruptly dismissed for lack of timely filing.

With a seething frustration, Metesky once more took to the typewriter, and, remarkably, a third hearing—one promising to include testimony on the merits of his case—was granted. “It took a lot of letter writing,” said Metesky, “but I got another hearing.” He would finally get his day in court.

On April 2, 1936, an inquiry was held before a compensation board referee, and Metesky, again represented by his attorney, was allowed to submit his grievances. At first, the testimony went as planned and Metesky, pleased with its progress, would comment that the referee, a Mr. S. E. Senior, appeared “fair and honest.” “He was a very nice man.” It was with a certain uneasiness, however, that Metesky watched the Con Ed workman, Cavanaugh, and the supervisors, Purdy and Lawson—all present on the day of his injury—enter the hearing room prepared to offer their accounts.

With verbal skills somewhat lacking, each of the men appeared to contradict the other as to the events of September 5, 1931. Purdy testified that Metesky was working at the plant on the day in question but recalled only that he did not feel well. Cavanaugh merely stated that Metesky had suffered a nosebleed, and Lawson swore that Metesky was not even working on the day in question. To the claimant's delight, Referee Senior became completely exasperated with the differing accounts rendered by the men, and threatened to discount the entirety of their testimony. “The referee was going to make an award in my favor . . . ,” Metesky later recalled. It appeared that his claim would finally be allowed.

At that moment, however, counsel for Con Ed and their insurance carrier, Hamlin and Company, rose with an air of smug confidence and once again asserted their rights under section 28 of the Compensation Act. Metesky visibly faltered as the referee listened intently to the arguments and reluctantly acceded. The undeniable fact remained that the written claim for benefits had been made beyond one year from the date of his accident. Senior had no choice but to once again deny Metesky's request.

An administrative appeal of the decision failed to yield better results. On September 28, 1936, the New York Workmen's Compensation Board conclusively denied George Metesky's final claim for benefits. Barring judicial appeals, which Metesky was in no position to finance, the ruling would stay undisturbed. Officially, it would remain so for twenty-one years. Later circumstances, however, would demand another look.

With the final appeal of the compensation case decided, George Metesky spent most of his time confined to home and bed, lamenting his misfortunes. Ever persistent, he again began writing a series of letters to Commissioner Andrews informing him of the great injustice performed at the Workmen's Compensation Board and imploring him to intercede in the matter. Andrews's failure to provide the desired results served only to frustrate the ailing Metesky and further provoked him to again escalate the use of his only available weapon—the written word.

A barrage of mail began arriving at the State Industrial Commission, the governor's office, and, of course, Con Ed. In droves, Metesky's letters, which by then had taken on an angry and ominous tone, poured into New York media outlets and public institutions, calling the world's attention to the “injustices” and “dastardly deeds” of the corrupt power company and the system that failed him—all without invoking so much as a flicker of interest or a furrowed brow of suspicion. “I had written thousands of letters to every newspaper, every radio station, every commentator of importance and just about every church. I even tried to purchase space in the press, even the papers rejected my offers,” Metesky would later state. He estimated that he had written nearly 800,000 words during this period— enough to fill a 3,000-page book. (Tolstoy's
War and Peace
contains about 560,000 words). “I never received so much as one single penny postal card in reply.”

His letters were long—some as many as nine hundred words—and filled with vitriolic ire. In one such letter to Con Ed, Metesky wrote:

You know, I just refuse to be robbed by the law, or a Power Trust, of my health, my ability to earn a living, the best years of my life, my advancement in the world . . . You are paying me what is due me, or you are telling me why not. Said reason better be AIR TIGHT. If there is any TREACHERY, or DOUBLE-CROSSING, I may assume the role of JUDGE JURY AND EXECUTIONER, and straighten matters out. I am done fooling around with SCUM.

With the failure of his communications to induce any response whatsoever, Metesky's hostility and bitterness only escalated, and gradually his thinking became more illogical and his behavior increasingly irrational. Convinced that the failure of the newspapers to take notice of his sad chronicle was due to their incestuous relations with the influential Con Ed, he soon developed a broad mistrust that extended to people and institutions in general—all of whom, according to Metesky, seemed to be conspiratorially connected in some way to the sinister power company. With his prodigious letter-writing campaign in full tilt, his life seemed to be driven by the singular purpose of enlightening the world to the horrible injustices perpetrated by Con Ed against himself and thousands of its other employees.

And yet at the very time that George Metesky's mind had begun its decent into the vortex of fury that would dominate his every thought, a creative and intellectual side also began to take shape. He invented an electric snow shovel that he demonstrated for one of his Waterbury tenants, who delightedly observed, “It worked great too. It'd pick up the snow and threw it to the left.” Later, Metesky rigged a hand-pushed lawnmower with a small electric motor and an extended durable cord that was featured in an article published in
Popular Science.
And in July 1938, he applied for and was ultimately granted a United States patent on a piston-driven circuit breaker for connecting and interrupting the electrical circuit of a solenoid pump. Ironically, this circuit completion technology would later prove to have broad application to a more devious and destructive venture engaged in by its inventor.

Though Metesky's technical nature occasionally distracted him from the anger and bitterness that permeated his thoughts, he would later confess, “I had a mission to perform,” and his focus would invariably return to the injustices committed by Con Ed and its personnel. It was, however, this very ability to portray himself with an air of normalcy—even excellence— that permitted his increasingly impaired judgment and perception to remain undetected for much of his adult life.

Notwithstanding outward appearances, Metesky's mind was slowly descending into flights of twisted imagination and distorted perceptions. He reserved his most vituperative bouts of fantasy for the three Con Ed employees—Cavanaugh, Purdy, and Lawson—who, in Metesky's mind, had purposely provided false and slanderous testimony against him at the compensation hearing (this, despite the fact that the referee had clearly discounted their statements as unreliably inconsistent).

During the periods when his health permitted, Metesky would travel in and around Manhattan via the subway system. On one such occasion, as he sat holding the steel balance rail and peering silently out the window, Cavanaugh, Purdy, and Lawson boarded the car at one of its stops. Nothing could have persuaded him that he was mistaken as to their identities—though perhaps, and in all likelihood, he was. The three took seats directly across from him, and though he glared at them with confrontational eyes, they pretended, Metesky insisted, not to notice. As they sat in quiet conversation he was absolutely convinced that he was the topic of their exchange. Their smiles were derisive and their laughter, mocking—and it was all directed at him. He was sure of it. From that moment and for years to come, George Metesky's disordered thinking became accompanied by a new and dangerous component: violence. In his mind's eye, he saw, as clear as the perjurers' deceitful lips, an explosion that ripped off the right arms of all three of these men—the arms that rose in a solemn vow to tell nothing but the truth. He saw a bullet enter the chest of the president of Con Ed, the shameful and blameworthy source of the world's evils, and explode in his heart. And as for the elite power centers of New York City itself, he saw a plan of sabotage that would bring the metropolis to its knees—and at long last call attention to the condemnable acts of Con Ed.