1950s New York City’s ‘Mad Bomber’ | Hacker News Reader

1950s New York City’s ‘Mad Bomber’

damninteresting.com

233 pointsvinnyglennon80 comments

>Police dismissed the [bomb] as the work of “boys or pranksters.”

My father tells me stories about how he witnessed people openly and actively "recruiting terrorists" in public in San Francisco in the 1970s.

He said they were just standing around with signs and pamphlets, calling out and trying to get you to sign up to their terrorist campaign.

Just as the religious zealots you see on the streets today that are mostly ignored.

The world has really changed, and fast.

I mention this book a lot, but it's good.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BAMN-Any-Means-Necessary-Manifestos...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/987215.BAMN

There is also this kind of amazing book

https://www.amazon.com/Days-Rage-Underground-Forgotten-Revol...

about the time in the early 1970s "when bombings by domestic underground groups were a daily occurrence".

this review is also very good if reading a 500 page book isn't on the table for those interested: https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/

(though it has its own political perspective that some may find disagreeable)

What's really interesting in that is looking at how those folks were integrated into later the later political diaspora.

Agreed. Days of Rage is an amazing look into groups I had never heard of prior to reading it. Got it for chapters on the Weather Underground and SLA, but thought the whole thing was very well done

Well no big difference today. Its just moved online. If you want to find gullible people you cant really do that in secret I would think. Vids, tweets and gifs instead of pamphlets.

Its partially what hollywood, games and news-media transport as terrorists image. The give them sort of a dark glamour, justifying the expensive military thrown at them. If they where depicting the screw ups- the prematurly exploding bombs, the wonky egos and stupid pride, the burning out flats destroying plans- the love-storys ruining suicidal bombers for the job. Al Quaida could make a comedy number, if it werent for the memorys of the hits outshadowing the many misses.

There is a fantastic British film along those lines:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1341167/

Recommend Four Lions as well - perhaps one of the few pieces of really cutting satire I've seen on the subject.

For many years I was in the infantry and spent a lot of time overseas in places fighting terrorists. "Fighting terrorists". We did occasionally fight, don't get me wrong, but I'd say 80% of the stuff that happened was just funny and the furthest thing from dangerous you could imagine. Just one example: One day, we received an intsum that told the story of how terrorists had finally been able to get a US visa for one of their people, a camel farmer in the far south of Iraq. The problem was that he was too much of a bedouin: He could not figure out how to operate calling cards to receive his instructions and they couldn't get his plane tickets to him. He had become marooned at the airport in Baghdad, where he was apprehended. And you want terrifying? The intelligence capabilities of the Five Eyes is what's terrifying. They had been involved with this story from the beginning. Snowden's revelations merely hint at the power of the Five Eyes, but if you knew half of the capabilities on display in a warzone, you'd shit your pants. That's truly the terrifying stuff.

>They had been involved with this story from the beginning.

Which story are you referring to, the camel farmer getting a visa?

>if you knew half of the capabilities on display in a warzone, you'd shit your pants

Please, do tell!

Wouldn't police arresting those before they have committed violent acts be considered thought crime? Shouldn't we arrest those that do things not those who talk about things?

There is a point at which discussing some theoretical action and it's implications/legal limitations/ethical concerns becomes conspiring to actually commit it..

Thinking it would be 'cool' if someone $verbed evil $noun or whatever is different than actively actually finding people to actually do it...

Conspiracy to commit an act is already prosecuted on variety of crimes

It's interesting to see replies justifying the status quo. Yes, you're absolutely right.

I want to say "arresting people for their words is a useful political tool," but it doesn't seem that clear-cut anymore. You see this when kids get arrested or expelled for some harmless thing they said on Twitter.

Yes, but in most cases we are arresting people for planning a crime, not just nonchalantly discussing it. Handing out recruitment flyers for an organisation that bombs others? Planning to murder your wife? Planning on defrauding x out of their life savings? You know, actual plans that meet the burden of proof for a criminal investigation. Yes. Please prevent this stuff that folks are planning.

Only more often it is the police who pretend to plan a crime and recruit suspects to participate in that fiction. If the suspects show willingness to participate they get arrested.

[1]http://www.npr.org/2014/07/18/332636882/newburgh-sting-terro...

[2]http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/was-fbi-grooming-po...

If you are making concrete plans to commit a crime, it is often punished with the same sentence as if you had committed the crime. In Canada and the UK, for example, conspiracy to murder can be punished with life imprisonment.

>Another exception occurred in November 1954 when, 30 minutes into a screening of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas at Radio City Music Hall, in an auditorium with around 6,000 patrons, a seat exploded and injured two women and two boys. Apologetic theater ushers asked 50 or so patrons near the bomb site to watch the remainder of the film from alternate seats, allowing ushers to rope the area off so the police could investigate after the movie.

Contrast this 50s crowd with the mass hysteria over the slightest disturbance today...

Can you imagine people today sitting to watch a movie in a theatre where a seat had just exploded and hurt people -- not to mention the total hysteria from the authorities jumping in like it's the end of the world.

Can you imagine a bomb in a crowded audience only injuring four people today?

My point rather is, can you image an audience continuing as if nothing much have happened after even an ad-hoc indoor firework was blasted, much less an actual pipe bomb injuring 4-5 people.

Are you trying to imply people shouldn't react to a bomb and stay near the site of an explosion? You evacuate because you don't know if there are more or if there is structural damage.

This question reinforces the parent's point. It seems totally obvious to us that everyone should GTFO of the theatre.

And yet in the 1950s they didn't.

What was different about the mindset of someone from the 50s? Were they inured to explosions coming out of WW2? Were "pranks" with pipe bombs a normal thing? Was it just that nobody had ever been killed by one so they didn't recognize the threat? Was the 50s mind somehow more stoic?

Explosives, gunshots, etc. are outside the normal sensory experience of most people and they are not accurately perceived. Even stimuli such as fire alarms which are intended to produce action frequently leave people standing slack-jawed wondering what to do.

For instance, when under attack from long-range gunfire, it frequently takes multiple shots, possibly even seeing multiple people get hit, before people understand what is going on. In eyewitness accounts people often disagree about which direction the shots came from, how many shots there were, etc. In fact, sometimes people get shot and don't know that they were shot until later.

A person getting injured by a small bomb in a theatre might understand they were injured, and not know how. Maybe they got shot, maybe they got stabbed, ... Everybody was looking at the screen so it is not clear. That person might go out to get help and people will focus on treating the injuries rather than understanding the situation.

It's actually pretty hard to make homemade bombs that reliably kill. It took the Unabomber more than a decade to figure it out, and that is why they have terrorist training camps. It is not very dangerous to make small pyrotechnics, simply because they don't contain much energy. If you were screwing around with those cough lozenge detonators and were making bombs big enough to be really hazardous, you would probably blow yourself up before you blew up anybody else.

Probably 2nd bomb tactic was something unheard of back then

I'm implying that people in the 50s had larger metaphorical balls and less hysteria than people now -- regardless of what is prudent to do.

It was also evident in how free-er kids would walk around -- a 10 year old having adventures around NYC by itself instead of being taken everywhere by their chauffeur parents.

Supposedly the rot started after the disappearance of Etan Patz in 1979, the first missing kid to have his picture on milk cartons. That's when parents started becoming more restrictive of their children's freedom.

Seeing pictures / hearing stories of parts of NYC in the mid 70's, I'd think any parent letting their adolescent/teenager roam completely freely in those days was pretty negligent..

And yet nothing much happened -- just those kids got less snow-flakey and entitled, and with a better grounding in reality.

Well, the murder rate was steadily increasing, so something happened

They also had less historical precedent for bombs going off preceding an armed terrorist attack, or a larger "double tap" follow-up explosion.

Additionally, the low explosive gunpowder used in these bombs is considerably less powerful than what you'd encounter in a modern day terrorist attack using high explosives (e.g. TATP, PETN or RDX). Even compared to other deflagrating low explosives, regular gunpowder is pretty mild compared to e.g. flash powder[1].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tgFKibzY3s

We're safer and more connected than they were back then. That means more sensitive to smaller risks, and better able to talk & hear about risks of all sorts.

Easily. Terrorists are mostly incompotent. Im always surprised at how low the injuries are when a bombing happens. Most terrorists attacks fail to kill a single person. The internet helps a bit, letting terrorists look up how to make bombs a bit better. But they still suck.

Breaking news alerts would be sent to phones around the world. "Bombing at New York theater ... Multiple casualties ... DEVELOPING." The Survivalists out in the Dakotas start loading up their weapons with ammo and standing watch on their properties for looters. Twitter is going nuts. Total lockdown at all public buildings in the Northeast US. Etc etc.

I really don't know where this class of triggered ppl get their energy though... to do it day in day out. They seem to be waiting for the next trigger like addicts or something.

It's the addiction of the victim mentality. It's the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_abuse

Uh like none of this happened when the dumpster bombs went off in Chelsea last year. They closed the streets for the investigation and to look for more bombs but it wasn't even close to a "lockdown of all public buildings", I'm pretty sure they just halted traffic. You could even - yes- walk around the area where the bomb went off the next day. It was a block from my office.

A dumpster is one thing. A theater seat cushion is something else.

I agree that we're a bunch of nervous Nellies these days, quivering in thrall to an overgrown police-military-industrial complex. But I'd probably draw the line at continuing to show the movie after a bomb goes off in the theater, as described in the article.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that WWII had ended only a few years earlier.

But, reading other articles about people back then, it does seem they were less inclined to panic than those today. IMHO today's mass hysteria over terrorism is playing directly into what the terrorists want, so perhaps there's a valid point to be made for "keep calm and carry on" as much as possible.

> playing directly into what the terrorists want

It more complicated than that. As much as it suits some terrorist, it suits a larger group composed of the likes of the militarised police forces, the administration hawks, defence forces protecting our freedom, arms firms, security companies, the tsa etc. It's a big industry that needs a scary bad guy.

Exactly. The word "terrorist" is as poor a descriptor as "bad guy" or "alternative music" apart from the people and groups you mentioned that use it to stir up fear (or "terror" if you will!)

It's a triangle. Terrorists, Media, Authorities. All three get something out of blowing this out of proportion (ok, bad pun).

People tend to get desensitized when they're surrounded by death and destruction, leading to phenomena such as gallows humor prevalent among soldiers, battlefield surgeons, and emergency room doctors, and to the famously casual attitude towards the Blitz in London, during which over 40,000 people died.

Whereas these days 7 people getting knifed in London results in a week's worth of non-stop front page news on the BBC and international media coverage, and calls to massively increase surveillance in already the most surveilled city in the world, ramp up the police state, and sacrifice civil liberties.

7 people got knifed? Actually 8 people died. 48 were injured.

Your point is still a point but try to be real.

...out of 8.788 million people, the response isn't proportional to the threat.

It's interesting that the media was so much more willing (than ours) to keep the bombings secret, at least early on. I wonder if that was a side effect of the war as well, in the sense that they might have become accustomed to suppressing sensitive information during wartime.

I just started 'Days of Rage', and much of what he discusses is the fact that from the end of the 60's, through the death of the hardline leftists in the 80's, bombings were an extremely commonplace means of violence. These bombings were less often intended to cause casualties as opposed to destroy property and make a public statement.

This was a great read, I enjoyed it very much – thanks for sharing!

It's also the first time I see this site. I've read a couple more articles on it and it looks nice, I like it. The writing is good and the material is interesting, and it's ad free on purpose. I pitched in a few dollars while I consider whether to subscribe. Again, thanks for sharing this nugget of gold!

Edit: fixed fat finger typos.

Damn Interesting is, as far as I know, the original "collection of historical anecdotes" Web site in the vein of Atlas Obscura or Mental Floss. They've always favoured long-form, well-sourced articles, and they started doing it before it was cool and/or profitable -- the site was at one point left unmaintained for well over a year if I remember correctly. So yes, hats off to them for playing the long game, sticking to their formula, and not devolving into yet another ads-plagued list-icles Web site.

Yep. At this point they also have a podcast which is the author reading the article and is a great lesson if you'd prefer to get it that way.

> the site was at one point left unmaintained for well over a year if I remember correctly

Yes, once the book writing started, the site articles completely stopped. It felt like years to me, but have no evidence of that.

It's an excellent resource, one of my favourites. The facts, just the facts, well told.

It was a different era for media. Locally we had a week of hysteria when some nutjob crushed old mercury thermostat vials in a hospital cafeteria. A crank bomb threat at a community center brought a platoon of paramilitary police milling around smoking all day for two weeks.

Google maps street view shows that the house in Waterbury is nearly unchanged. The siding is different, the narrower boards of yesteryear having been replaced by wider boards at some point, but other than that it's the same.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/17+4th+St,+Waterbury,+CT+0...

The police and the community seems to be more respectful of each other. The serving of warrant and how they arrested him would be the total opposite in our current society.

The only thing that has not changed is the ruthless corporations treatment of their employees.

On the other end, they detained their first suspect with next to no evidence, then locked him up in a mental ward for over 6 months despite new bombings happenings while he was in there.

Remember Serpico (not just the movie, but what the real guy uncovered): the New York police used to be hugely corrupt, until his testimony brought about changes.

The writing of this was incredibly twee--"booming side business" in particular inspired a groan. I think that added to my enjoyment of this article.

My favorite line:

> Mullen clearly had every intention of throwing the book at Metesky, picking it up, dusting it off, and throwing it again.

Why put nuts and bolts in the bomb if he didn't really intent to hurt somebody?

Perhaps he had too many and wanted to dispose them?

I thought the same thing. A) The dude clearly had some loose screws. B) He was convinced his actions were just. After crossing that line, you can justify plenty of stuff to yourself.

There's also this which occurred in NYC in the 70s and remains unsolved:

http://observer.com/2016/01/why-hasnt-washington-explained-t...

Just imagine the pandemonium that would ensue if something like this would happen today. "Breaking News" 24/7 for as long as the campaign lasted.

One nitpick: Con Ed's plant was located near an actual thing called Hell Gate, not nicknamed that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Gate

Also see its namesake bridge, under which seemingly every "dangerous meeting" scene of every movie ever, was shot.

Damn interesting. Though I didn't quite get the whole dissolving-lozenge-as-a-timer thing. How would that work?

I'm imagining a broken circuit that is connected once the lozenge melts and connects two parts?

Probably a spring-loaded striker which is released once the lozenge has dissolved sufficiently. British WWII limpet mines used a similar system.

The quality of the audio narration is really surprising!! Foley and music!

I miss the good old days when cops could be cops. Locking people in mental institutions for 6 months, arresting people and killing them with heart attacks.

> Also, it was Friday.

Back when newspapers actually did good, valuable work.

>anti-communist red scare

McCarthism was as much anti-fascist as it was anti-communist, but of course commies would rewrite history to play the victims. Read the actual laws, it never mentions communism without mentioning fascism in the same sentence.

Apparently the "shrillest" moment of the "red scare" was correctly convicting two communist spies of treason.

Neither of them were convicted for "treason".

Quoting the judge, when handing down the death sentences:

I consider your crime worse than murder... I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-Bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason.

Fascinating. Neither were convicted of "treason", the requirements of which are, alone among crimes, spelled out in the main text of the Constitution.

Would you please stop using HN for ideological battle? We ban accounts that do this because it violates HN's mandate. And we've asked you many times before.

I don't want to post about politics either, but people post ideological stuff, ideological replies should be expected, no? When I started using the website it was more focused on what it was meant to be, and I don't think I ever discussed politics then. Then the American elections happened and people started posting politics all the time. Well, political replies ensue. I flag posts that are purely political, I don't just reply to them.

HN has always had a certain amount of political discussion and while you're right that it fluctuates with external conditions, the core amount of it is pretty stable. But there's a difference between substantive discussion and ideological inflammation. Name-calling ("commies") and dismissive swipes ("stop being so defensive") belong to the latter, so please edit such bits out of your comments here.

The principle is simple: avoid flamebait to reduce flamewars.

That's fair, I will be more civil. But I don't think I am able to edit my comments.

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