The Mad Bomber of New York

by Michael M. Greenburg

  With the advent of postwar suburban life and effortless automobile travel, however, interstate rail service had begun a steady decline, and by the early 1950s the condition of the once majestic terminal had suffered greatly, prompting murmurs of its possible demolition. Among the many legends and architectural oddities of Grand Central that had survived, however, was the so-called Whispering Gallery that lay beneath the tiled Guastavino arches, extending across the ceilings of the lower concourse in front of the famous Oyster Bar, a seafood restaurant that opened in 1913 with the inauguration of the station itself. Created by the low ceramic structures of the domed ceiling, the unique architectural design allowed even faint whispers in one corner of the gallery to be heard clearly and distinctly across the expanse to the other.

  As George Metesky stole into the lower level of Grand Central Terminal in the early afternoon of March 29, 1951, and placed his latest edition of revenge in a cigarette sand urn outside of the Oyster Bar, the acoustical quirk of the Whispering Gallery carried his footfalls throughout the passageway. The later explosive blast would fill the area with the same force and avid resolve as Metesky now brought to his reborn cause.

  At 5:25 in the afternoon, at the peak of New York’s rush hour, Metesky’s unit detonated, spraying shards of sand and debris in all directions. By happenstance nobody was passing by the area at the particular moment of discharge, but the blast was heard throughout the station and into the confines of the Oyster Bar. There were no injuries and there was little, if any, panic by commuters and patrons, though the bomb squad investigation that ensued well into the evening was a curious and disrupting sight in a location that thrived on a certain frenzied order.

  Investigators were immediately stumped. This did not appear to be a typical pipe bomb, and, since there was a detonation, a conclusion as to its design and construction would be a difficult task. The attempted bombings of the Con Ed buildings in the early 1940s were a fleeting memory, and no immediate connection was made by police.

  In the following days, Metesky was gratified by several newspaper articles that covered the incident. Though some of the particulars conflicted, the story was picked up by the wire services and the news had spread across the country, albeit in small accounts beneath the fold or buried in the back pages. For the most part, these stories emphasized the homemade nature of the device and confirmed that no one had been injured. The New York Times contained a page 24 article titled “Bomb Blast in Terminal,” which stated that the police attributed the incident to “boys or pranksters.”

  The Grand Central bombing was, in reality, intended by Metesky as more of a prototype of a new fusing mechanism rather than a full-fledged explosive device. It did not contain a pipe casing or a measure of volatile powder, only a .25-caliber cartridge and an ingenious apparatus designed to automatically discharge the round at a predetermined time. Though destroyed in the ignition, the focus of this mechanism was, once again, the throat lozenge that had so confounded bomb squad detectives in the past—and would continue to do so in the future.

  Metesky knew that the “throat disc,” as he called it, had a constant rate of dissolution when exposed to moisture. Through years of experimentation he observed that by applying varying amounts of water to a disc that had been meticulously filed down to a prescribed thickness, he could predict, with some accuracy, the time it would take for the disc to melt. A spoonful of water, for example, would disintegrate the disc in half an hour, while two to three drops would take several days. In his earlier units (which had failed to detonate either by design or defect), he applied these properties to complete the circuit between a battery and a flash bulb. As the lozenge dissolved it would bring the fusing wires into contact and thus, in theory, detonate the bomb.

  His new method, though still crude, carried a greater level of ingenuity—and risk. In the Grand Central incident Metesky used the throat disc to compress a spring within a slot in the bomb housing. Once the disc sufficiently dissolved (the time this took depending on the amount of water added), the spring would release, driving a ball-bearing into a second spring, which, in turn, slammed a firing pin into the .25-caliber cartridge, causing its detonation. In his future bombings, the cartridge and the throat disc fusing mechanism would be used to trigger a larger cache of smokeless gunpowder contained within a pipe casing. On March 29, 1951, however, it was nothing more than the sound of a .25-caliber bullet that echoed through the lower concourse of Grand Central Terminal near track 27.

  Metesky was now ready to begin what he called “the rough stuff.” He had perfected several workable versions of his bomb units, and to give his crusade maximum exposure he would seek further high-profile targets in heavily traveled areas. He always insisted that it was never his intention to kill or injure any person, and thus he would purposefully design his bombs to be smaller in scale and less likely to inflict harm. “I’ve read,” Metesky would later say, “that a man with a hammer can wreck a sixteen-inch naval gun, just by hitting it until it shatters. It takes a while. It’s the same way with bombs. Individually, they couldn’t knock a telephone off the wall. Collectively, they had an effect.”

  The New York City police would beg to differ. In each case, investigators would conclude that Metesky’s bombs were purposefully placed in public locations and that each was capable of causing injury or death to anyone within proximity. Every so-called unit was, in fact, “lethal.”

  About three weeks after the Grand Central incident, Metesky struck again. He stole into a telephone booth on the basement level of the New York Public Library on Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, and placed a three-and-a-half-inch length of pipe fueled with smokeless gunpowder and a .25-caliber cartridge mechanism—throat disc fused—inside the metal fan casing at the top of the enclosure. At 6:10 in the evening of April 24, 1951, the bomb detonated, tearing through the booth’s ventilation apparatus and horrifying (but remarkably not injuring) a library security guard who happened to be leaning against the booth at the time of the blast. Bomb squad detectives immediately saw the connection with the Grand Central bombing, both in the form of the mechanism and in the manner of its placement, and the newspapers were quick to recall the earlier police conclusion that they were dealing with “pranksters.”

  Over the months that followed, Metesky seemed to regroup and assess what, if anything, he had accomplished. He had successfully planted several of his units, each of which had detonated as designed, and each had garnered some minor publicity. Yet, whatever satisfaction he gained from these events was trifling and short-lived. With every painful and labored breath that he drew, he was reminded of his nemesis, Con Ed, and his mission to make them pay for what they did to him. He was compelled to finish what he had started.

  On August 27, 1951, Metesky once again struck Grand Central Terminal. At 9:00 p.m., well beyond the evening rush hour, a length of galvanized pipe detonated in a telephone booth on the west concourse of the terminal, causing damage but no injuries. And several weeks later, in a direct assault against Con Ed, a five-inch pipe bomb, his largest to that point, exploded in a telephone booth in the lobby of the company’s main offices on Irving Place. Again, in an apparent effort to minimize the possibility of injury, the unit was timed to explode at 6:15 in the morning, well before most employees arrived for work.

  The New York City police downplayed the Con Ed incident, again insisting that they were dealing with a prankster and that damage had been “trifling.” Privately, however, bomb squad detectives had begun to grow uneasy. Detective William Schmitt, an affable, brawny veteran of the force charged with the task of examining and cataloguing each fragmented component of the exploded machines, immediately realized that the city was dealing with a serial bomber. Though the contraptions thus far had been constructed on a small scale, he recognized the progressively improved workmanship of each and, along with the bomb squad as a whole, privately worried that the culprit would take the obvious next step of increasing the potency of his work. Contained in the official
police record of the second Grand Central bombing was this ominous notation: “This is a well constructed mechanism. It shows considerable advance in technique as compared with earlier bombs.”

  In what would become the standing policy of the New York City Police Department for the next five years of the investigation, department personnel refused to provide any specific details of their investigation. “It would ‘just build up the ego of the nut who did it,’” said one detective. The department was also concerned that heavy publicity about the bombings might panic the city and bring out the inevitable copycats. This position would prove to be a dreadful blunder. As Metesky himself would explain, “They got some stupid advice from some psychiatrist, ‘If you don’t bother with him, he’ll stop.’ And that just made me work all the harder.”

  Thirteen days after the Con Ed bombing, a clerk in the third floor Con Ed mail room accepted postal delivery of a large manila envelope that seemed to bulge at its seams. The package, postmarked “White Plains, NY,” was hand-addressed to the personnel director of the company and contained, at the upper left corner, a printed return designation of “Lehman and Lehman.” Though the Con Ed security force had advised all company personnel to remain alert for strange or unexplained devices in the building, the clerk was not cued to any obvious danger that might have been suggested by the package. Upon tearing it open, however, he identified the ashen hue of galvanized metal and dashed for security.

  Following the usual protocol, a bomb squad detective, in full protective gear, examined the device via the portable fluoroscope, then jostled it from a distance in an attempt to test the trigger mechanism. When nothing occurred, the device was removed from the building in the mesh envelope and whisked, via the armored containment vehicle, to a safer locale. Upon closer scrutiny, the device seemed to contain all the familiar earmarks of the Bomber’s handiwork, though the powder within the casing didn’t look right. When it was deemed safe to do so, the detectives dismantled the contraption and out poured the phantom powder, which, upon further analysis, proved to be nothing more than sugar. Metesky’s howls of laughter could almost be heard all the way to police headquarters. In describing the incident years later, one New York newspaper wrote, “The weirdie patently pulled this caper for laughs.”

  On October 22, 1951, a longshoremen’s strike that had pressed its way up the New York waterfront had paralyzed thirty miles of docks and now expanded into shipments of rail freight, and at the White House an announcement had been made that the Soviet Union had once again conducted a test of an atomic weapon. News of the day had been coming in at a brisk pace, and the night crew of the New York Herald Tribune was hard at work bringing the next day’s early edition to life. Decisions as to lead stories and copy position were being made at the usual breakneck speed, and interruption was the last thing the staff of the paper needed—but interruption was exactly what it got.

  At approximately 10:15 on the evening of October 22, a special delivery letter found its way into the hands of the Tribune’s city editor. With one angry eye focused on a staff writer who was protesting the deletion of certain passages from a feature article that he had proudly authored, the editor fumbled with the envelope whose late-night delivery carried the air of some import. As he began reading the missive, his full attention was abruptly garnered and the clamor of the writer’s remonstrations slipped into the hum of background noise generated by the clattering office. In handwritten block letters stroked in pencil, the note informed the reader that a bomb had been planted in the ventilation system of the men’s restroom located in the basement of the Paramount Theatre, at Broadway and Forty-third Street. The letter went on:

  BOMBS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE CONSOLIDATED EDISON COMPANY IS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE FOR THEIR DASTARDLY ACTS AGAINST ME. I HAVE EXHAUSTED ALL OTHER MEANS. I INTEND WITH BOMBS TO CAUSE OTHERS TO CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE FOR ME . . . IF I DON’T GET JUSTICE I WILL CONTINUE, BUT WITH BIGGER BOMBS.

  Within minutes word had reached the bomb squad and a quiet search of the Paramount had begun. As 3,600 unwitting patrons enjoyed that evening’s movie presentation, an unexploded four-inch “cylindrical object” charged with black powder and a .25-caliber bullet was carried from the building and hurried from the area in the squad’s containment vehicle.

  In what would become a further signature of his operations, Metesky had provided an advance warning of his doings in an effort not only to curtail injuries but also to maximize the potential publicity garnered from the event. Beginning with the Manhattan Paramount, he would, on occasion, place a terse and angry telephone call to his targets or write advance letters warning of his bombs—and scolding the recipients of the consequences of their failure to blame Con Ed for the incidents. With the letter to the Herald Tribune, Metesky accomplished each of these goals. Though, for now, the Tribune itself had resisted publishing the contents of the letter, other local newspapers (as well as a prominent wire service) had obtained a copy and included full-length quotations, over the formal objections of the New York City Police Department.

  The police and the public at large now knew that the person responsible for planting explosive devices in locations throughout the city bore a venomous hostility against the Consolidated Edison Company. Hungry for attention and retribution, Metesky had openly revealed his motives.

  Even with the revelation to the Tribune, police detectives remained in the dark as to who was plaguing the city with these infernal machines. The obvious conclusion that the Bomber was in some way affiliated with Con Ed was muddled by the fact that bombs had turned up in other locations throughout New York, and, in any event, the universe of individuals bearing some kind of grievance against the power company could number in the tens of thousands. As frustration mounted, wild theories began to circulate through the department and the police groped for clues. Following the lead of a former New York City fire marshal in the investigation of a serial arsonist in the 1920s, it was observed that the Bomber seemed to follow a pattern of one bomb per month and that each of these was planted within three days of a full moon. Some in the department theorized that the culprit was a so called “mooner”—“one in whom flashes of lunacy are induced by lunar fullness.” It was even successfully argued that extra manpower be devoted to possible targets during these full-moon periods. The lengths to which the department would go to apprehend the Bomber seemed to expand by the day.

  Wild theories notwithstanding, police detectives pursued every practical lead and parcel of evidence available to them. They analyzed each word of the Bomber’s letter to the Tribune as to both appearance and substance, and they pored through as many relevant Con Ed personnel files as time and manpower would permit. Finally, through the identification of a file from a particularly disgruntled former Con Ed employee and a positive comparison of handwriting samples, detectives began to focus on a possible suspect. In the first week of November 1951, it appeared that an arrest was imminent.

  “This defendant is a particular source of annoyance to the New York City Police. We are firmly convinced that he is not of sound mind.” Chief Magistrate John Murtagh regarded the words of the assistant district attorney with interest as the felony court arraignment began. The suspect, who silently looked on, had been arrested the previous day in his Connecticut home on a charge of sending a threatening letter and a package containing a sugar-laden “bomb” to the offices of Consolidated Edison Company. “He has been sending simulated bombs around the city the past few months,” continued the attorney. “Hundreds of police have been called out at all hours of the day and night to investigate because of his actions.”

  The arrest had been prompted by the similarity of the suspect’s handwriting to the block printing contained in the letter to the Tribune (a similarity that the accused himself was forced to admit), as well as a documented and ongoing dispute between the suspect and Con Ed that police had adroitly unearthed. Though at the time of the arrest there existed no direct evidence to link him to any of the other bombings around Manhattan,
it was assumed that such evidence would soon pour into the department. Faced with these charges and potential charges, the prisoner waived extradition and willingly accompanied the officers to New York for arraignment. He was considered by police to be the prime—and only—suspect.

  As a white-haired, fifty-six-year-old former employee of Con Ed, Frederick Eberhardt, was lead out of the courtroom bound in handcuffs and committed to Bellevue Hospital for thirty-seven days of psychiatric observation, his sobbing wife was heard to protest, “This arrest is an outrage. He never sent those things. He couldn’t hurt a fly.”

  As to his confinement at Bellevue, Eberhardt would later recall, “They were the most harrowing days of my life.”

  In the days following the arrest, police officials held their collective breath, hopeful that the rash of bombings had finally come to an end. On November 11, however, as Frederick Eberhardt underwent a battery of mental testing at Bellevue, bomb squad detectives were once again called into action. Anonymous calls had been made to the East Twenty-second Street police station and to an operator at the Plaza exchange of the telephone company, reporting that bombs had been planted and were ready to explode at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway and a Roman Catholic church on East Twenty-eighth Street.

  At 10:33 on the morning of November 28, 1951, air-raid sirens pierced through the chaotic drone of Times Square, bringing the usual tangle of traffic to a complete stop and sending drivers, passengers, and pedestrians alike for the cover of designated bomb shelters. “With horns silenced and other noises stilled, an eerie quiet settled on the streets, deserted except for policemen and a few defense workers,” said the New York Times. “It lasted until the first wailing note of the all-clear was heard at 10:43 A.M. and then within seconds the city bustled back to life and New Yorkers went about their affairs as if nothing unusual had happened.” In a three-minute exercise that the presiding civil defense director, Arthur W. Wallander, called a “pattern for survival,” New Yorkers had ushered in the atomic age with a “remarkably successful,” first of its kind air-raid drill. “I feel it would go just as well if an actual raid had occurred,” gloated Wallander. “It was money well spent—If only for insurance.”