Greenwich Village townhouse explosion
Encyclopedia
The Greenwich Village townhouse explosion was the premature detonation of a bomb as it was being assembled by members of the American radical left
group, Weatherman
– later renamed the Weather Underground – in the basement of a townhouse
at 18 West 11th Street between Fifth Avenue
and the Avenue of the Americas
(Sixth Avenue) in the Greenwich Village
neighborhood of Manhattan
, New York City
. The three persons nearest the bomb were killed, two others in the house were slightly injured, and the four-story townhouse was reduced to rubble and caught fire.
s packed with dynamite and roofing nails. Former members of Weatherman later advanced differing claims as to the planned uses of the bombs. According to Mark Rudd
, the plan was to set them off that evening at a dance for noncommissioned officers and their dates at the Fort Dix, New Jersey Army base, to "bring the [Vietnam] war home". Other reports say that some were destined for the Fort Dix dance and some were to destroy the main library at Columbia University
.
who was a leader of the New York collective, the Weatherman collective, disappointed with the minimal effects of their earlier attempts with Molotov cocktail
s at the home of Judge Murtagh and other locations, at the suggestion of Terry Robbins
, another of the leaders, decided to use dynamite for their planned actions. A considerable quantity of dynamite and a number of electric fuses were purchased. Targets were investigated and three designated, including a dance at Fort Dix, an army base in nearby New Jersey. It was reported that "arguments went on day and night" in the townhouse, with Kathy Boudin favoring the use of antipersonnel
bombs, and Diana Oughton having misgivings.
No one in the collective was experienced with explosives, Terry Robbins and Cathy Wilkerson lacking knowledge even in the basics of electricity. A simple circuit, without safety features, was designed consisting of a battery, a fuse, a clock and wire connecting these elements. The dynamite was inserted into a one foot length of water pipe packed with nails. Precisely what went wrong is uncertain, but the resulting series of blasts in the sub-basement of the townhouse killed those near the bomb and caused the collapse of the townhouse.
, Diana Oughton
, and Terry Robbins
. Surviving in a stunned and bleeding state were Weatherman members Kathy Boudin
and Cathlyn Wilkerson
, who were upstairs at the moment of the blast. The two survivors were led out from the burning structure by a police officer and the off-duty New York City Housing Authority patrolman who had entered in search of survivors. The rescuers were treated at St. Vincent's Hospital
for smoke inhalation.
Boudin and Wilkerson disappeared before they could be questioned. They had been free on bail on assault charges stemming from the Days of Rage
riots in Chicago. A neighbor who rendered aid after the blast described them as "dazed and trembling" as they were led "staggering" from the wreckage, one clad only in blue jeans and the other naked. The neighbor brought them to her house, where they showered, borrowed some clothing and told a housekeeper they were going to a local drugstore, then got into a taxi and disappeared.
The building was owned by Wilkerson's father, a radio-station executive. As the search for bodies continued days after the explosion, Wilkerson's parents made a televised appeal to their missing daughter to avoid needlessly risking the lives of searchers. They asked her to "let us know how many more people, if any, are still left in the ruins of our home", saying "more lives would be needlessly lost and only you have the key".
An initial search turned up a 1916 37-mm antitank
shell
. In the following days, a brick-by-brick search of the rubble uncovered 57 sticks of dynamite
, four 12 inches (304.8 mm) pipe bomb
s packed with dynamite, and 30 blasting cap
s. The pipe bombs and several eight-stick packages of dynamite had fuses
already attached. Also found were timing devices
rigged from alarm clocks, maps of the tunnel network underneath Columbia University
, and literature of the political protest organization, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
, from which the Weatherman
organization had split. Police described the building as a "bomb factory", and said that at the time of the explosion dynamite was apparently being wrapped in tape with nails embedded to act as shrapnel
.
The crime scene was gory. It took nine days of collecting body parts to determine how many persons had died in the blast. Fingerprint records were required to identify the corpses of Theodore Gold
, a leader of the 1968 Columbia University student protests
, and Diana Oughton
, the organizer of the 1969 SDS national convention. As to the identity of the third corpse, rumors circulated in radical circles that it was that of Terry Robbins
, a leader of the 1968 Kent State University
student rebellion and a founder of the Weathermen, who would be indicted the following month along with 11 others for organizing and inciting riots during the "Days of Rage". That May, this rumor was confirmed in a communique purportedly issued by the Weathermen. The message was a "declaration of war" by the organization which warned that it would "attack a symbol or institution of American injustice" within the next two weeks. This communique named Robbins as the third body and described Gold, Oughton, and Robbins as revolutionaries "no longer on the move".
list, but they succeeded in avoiding capture for a decade. Wilkerson surrendered in 1980. Boudin was apprehended in 1981 for her role in the Brink's armored car robbery
.
, cofounder of Merrill Lynch
, who lived there with his family until 1931. The bombing is lamented in a poem by Merrill's son, the poet James Merrill
, titled with the address of the house: "Shards of a blackened witness still in place. / The charred ice-sculpture garden / Beams fell upon. . . ."
Actor Dustin Hoffman
and his wife Anne Byrne were living in the townhouse next door at the time of the explosion. He can be seen in the 2002 documentary The Weather Underground
, standing on the street during the aftermath of the explosion.
Far left
Far left, also known as the revolutionary left, radical left and extreme left are terms which refer to the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics...
group, Weatherman
Weatherman (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...
– later renamed the Weather Underground – in the basement of a townhouse
Townhouse
A townhouse is the term historically used in the United Kingdom, Ireland and in many other countries to describe a residence of a peer or member of the aristocracy in the capital or major city. Most such figures owned one or more country houses in which they lived for much of the year...
at 18 West 11th Street between Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)
Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The section of Fifth Avenue that crosses Midtown Manhattan, especially that between 49th Street and 60th Street, is lined with prestigious shops and is consistently ranked among...
and the Avenue of the Americas
Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)
Sixth Avenue – officially Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown"...
(Sixth Avenue) in the Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
neighborhood of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The three persons nearest the bomb were killed, two others in the house were slightly injured, and the four-story townhouse was reduced to rubble and caught fire.
The event
Shortly before noon on Friday, March 6, 1970, people in the townhouse were assembling nail bombNail bomb
The nail bomb is an anti-personnel explosive device packed with nails to increase its wounding ability. The nails act as shrapnel, leading almost certainly to greater loss of life and injury in inhabited areas than the explosives alone would. The nail bomb is also a type of flechette weapon...
s packed with dynamite and roofing nails. Former members of Weatherman later advanced differing claims as to the planned uses of the bombs. According to Mark Rudd
Mark Rudd
Mark William Rudd is a political organizer, mathematics instructor, and anti-war activist, most well known for his involvement with the Weather Underground. Rudd became a member of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society in 1963. By 1968, he had emerged as a leader...
, the plan was to set them off that evening at a dance for noncommissioned officers and their dates at the Fort Dix, New Jersey Army base, to "bring the [Vietnam] war home". Other reports say that some were destined for the Fort Dix dance and some were to destroy the main library at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
Preparation and construction
According to Cathy WilkersonCathlyn Platt Wilkerson
Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson , known as Cathy Wilkerson, is an American radical who was a member of the 1970s radical group called the Weather Underground . She came to the attention of the police when she was leaving the townhouse belonging to her father after it was destroyed by an explosion on March...
who was a leader of the New York collective, the Weatherman collective, disappointed with the minimal effects of their earlier attempts with Molotov cocktail
Molotov cocktail
The Molotov cocktail, also known as the petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, Molotov bomb, fire bottle, fire bomb, or simply Molotov, is a generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons...
s at the home of Judge Murtagh and other locations, at the suggestion of Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins was a U.S. leftist radical activist. A key member of the Students for a Democratic Society Ohio chapter, he led Kent State into its first militant student uprising in 1968. Robbins was credited for drawing inspiration from Bob Dylan’s song Subterranean Homesick Blues which later...
, another of the leaders, decided to use dynamite for their planned actions. A considerable quantity of dynamite and a number of electric fuses were purchased. Targets were investigated and three designated, including a dance at Fort Dix, an army base in nearby New Jersey. It was reported that "arguments went on day and night" in the townhouse, with Kathy Boudin favoring the use of antipersonnel
Anti-personnel weapon
An anti-personnel weapon is one primarily used to incapacitate people, as opposed to attacking structures or vehicles.The development of defensive fortification and combat vehicles gave rise to weapons designed specifically to attack them, and thus a need to distinguish between those systems and...
bombs, and Diana Oughton having misgivings.
No one in the collective was experienced with explosives, Terry Robbins and Cathy Wilkerson lacking knowledge even in the basics of electricity. A simple circuit, without safety features, was designed consisting of a battery, a fuse, a clock and wire connecting these elements. The dynamite was inserted into a one foot length of water pipe packed with nails. Precisely what went wrong is uncertain, but the resulting series of blasts in the sub-basement of the townhouse killed those near the bomb and caused the collapse of the townhouse.
Immediate aftermath
Killed by the blast were Theodore GoldTed Gold
Theodore "Ted" Gold was a member of Weatherman.-Early years and education:Gold was a red diaper baby. He was the son of Hyman Gold, a prominent Jewish physician and a mathematics instructor at Columbia University who had both been part of the Old Left. His mother was a statistician who taught at...
, Diana Oughton
Diana Oughton
Diana Oughton was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society Michigan Chapter and later, a member of the 1960s radical group Weatherman. Oughton received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College. After graduation, Oughton went to Guatemala with the VISA program to teach the young and older...
, and Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins was a U.S. leftist radical activist. A key member of the Students for a Democratic Society Ohio chapter, he led Kent State into its first militant student uprising in 1968. Robbins was credited for drawing inspiration from Bob Dylan’s song Subterranean Homesick Blues which later...
. Surviving in a stunned and bleeding state were Weatherman members Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin is a former American radical who was convicted in 1984 of felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery that resulted in the killing of three people. She later became a public health expert while in prison...
and Cathlyn Wilkerson
Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson
Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson , known as Cathy Wilkerson, is an American radical who was a member of the 1970s radical group called the Weather Underground . She came to the attention of the police when she was leaving the townhouse belonging to her father after it was destroyed by an explosion on March...
, who were upstairs at the moment of the blast. The two survivors were led out from the burning structure by a police officer and the off-duty New York City Housing Authority patrolman who had entered in search of survivors. The rescuers were treated at St. Vincent's Hospital
Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center
Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers ' was a healthcare system, anchored by its flagship hospital, St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, locally referred to as "St. Vincent's". St. Vincent's was founded in 1849 and closed in 2010...
for smoke inhalation.
Boudin and Wilkerson disappeared before they could be questioned. They had been free on bail on assault charges stemming from the Days of Rage
Days of Rage
The Days of Rage demonstrations were a series of direct actions taken over a course of three days in October 1969 in Chicago organized by the Weatherman faction of the Students for a Democratic Society...
riots in Chicago. A neighbor who rendered aid after the blast described them as "dazed and trembling" as they were led "staggering" from the wreckage, one clad only in blue jeans and the other naked. The neighbor brought them to her house, where they showered, borrowed some clothing and told a housekeeper they were going to a local drugstore, then got into a taxi and disappeared.
The building was owned by Wilkerson's father, a radio-station executive. As the search for bodies continued days after the explosion, Wilkerson's parents made a televised appeal to their missing daughter to avoid needlessly risking the lives of searchers. They asked her to "let us know how many more people, if any, are still left in the ruins of our home", saying "more lives would be needlessly lost and only you have the key".
Investigation
The blast was initially thought to be a series of natural gas explosions, but investigators quickly concluded from the extent of the damage that dynamite or some other powerful explosive was the cause. Gas lines broken by the blast fed an ensuing fire. According to the police investigator in charge, "The people in the house were obviously putting together the component parts of a bomb and they did something wrong."An initial search turned up a 1916 37-mm antitank
Anti-tank warfare
Anti-tank warfare was created by the need to seek technology and tactics to destroy tanks and their supporting infantry during the First World War...
shell
Shell (projectile)
A shell is a payload-carrying projectile, which, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot . Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used...
. In the following days, a brick-by-brick search of the rubble uncovered 57 sticks of dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...
, four 12 inches (304.8 mm) pipe bomb
Pipe bomb
A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device, a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple low explosives can be used to produce a relatively large explosion, and the fragmentation of the pipe itself creates potentially...
s packed with dynamite, and 30 blasting cap
Blasting cap
A blasting cap is a small sensitive primary explosive device generally used to detonate a larger, more powerful and less sensitive secondary explosive such as TNT, dynamite, or plastic explosive....
s. The pipe bombs and several eight-stick packages of dynamite had fuses
Fuse (explosives)
In an explosive, pyrotechnic device or military munition, a fuse is the part of the device that initiates function. In common usage, the word fuse is used indiscriminately...
already attached. Also found were timing devices
Timer
A timer is a specialized type of clock. A timer can be used to control the sequence of an event or process. Whereas a stopwatch counts upwards from zero for measuring elapsed time, a timer counts down from a specified time interval, like an hourglass.Timers can be mechanical, electromechanical,...
rigged from alarm clocks, maps of the tunnel network underneath Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and literature of the political protest organization, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
, from which the Weatherman
Weatherman (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...
organization had split. Police described the building as a "bomb factory", and said that at the time of the explosion dynamite was apparently being wrapped in tape with nails embedded to act as shrapnel
Fragmentation (weaponry)
Fragmentation is the process by which the casing of an artillery shell, bomb, grenade, etc. is shattered by the detonating high explosive filling. The correct technical terminology for these casing pieces is fragments , although shards or splinters can be used for non-preformed fragments...
.
The crime scene was gory. It took nine days of collecting body parts to determine how many persons had died in the blast. Fingerprint records were required to identify the corpses of Theodore Gold
Ted Gold
Theodore "Ted" Gold was a member of Weatherman.-Early years and education:Gold was a red diaper baby. He was the son of Hyman Gold, a prominent Jewish physician and a mathematics instructor at Columbia University who had both been part of the Old Left. His mother was a statistician who taught at...
, a leader of the 1968 Columbia University student protests
Columbia University protests of 1968
The Columbia University protests of 1968 were among the many student demonstrations that occurred around the world in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United...
, and Diana Oughton
Diana Oughton
Diana Oughton was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society Michigan Chapter and later, a member of the 1960s radical group Weatherman. Oughton received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College. After graduation, Oughton went to Guatemala with the VISA program to teach the young and older...
, the organizer of the 1969 SDS national convention. As to the identity of the third corpse, rumors circulated in radical circles that it was that of Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins was a U.S. leftist radical activist. A key member of the Students for a Democratic Society Ohio chapter, he led Kent State into its first militant student uprising in 1968. Robbins was credited for drawing inspiration from Bob Dylan’s song Subterranean Homesick Blues which later...
, a leader of the 1968 Kent State University
Kent State University
Kent State University is a public research university located in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university has eight campuses around the northeast Ohio region with the main campus in Kent being the largest...
student rebellion and a founder of the Weathermen, who would be indicted the following month along with 11 others for organizing and inciting riots during the "Days of Rage". That May, this rumor was confirmed in a communique purportedly issued by the Weathermen. The message was a "declaration of war" by the organization which warned that it would "attack a symbol or institution of American injustice" within the next two weeks. This communique named Robbins as the third body and described Gold, Oughton, and Robbins as revolutionaries "no longer on the move".
The fate of the survivors
Neighbors positively identified Wilkerson as one of the two women who had been led out from the wreckage. Boudin was not positively identified as the second survivor until some weeks later. Both women were charged with illegal possession of dynamite in the townhouse blast. They forfeited their bail on the above mentioned Chicago assault charges by failing to appear in Chicago for trial ten days later. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) placed them on its Ten Most Wanted FugitivesFBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list arose from a conversation held in late 1949 between J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, and William Kinsey Hutchinson, International News Service Editor-in-Chief, who were discussing ways to promote capture of the...
list, but they succeeded in avoiding capture for a decade. Wilkerson surrendered in 1980. Boudin was apprehended in 1981 for her role in the Brink's armored car robbery
Brinks robbery (1981)
The Brink's robbery of 1981 was an armed robbery committed on October 20, 1981, which was carried out by Black Liberation Army members; including Jeral Wayne Williams , Donald Weems , Samuel Smith, Nathaniel Burns , Cecilio "Chui" Ferguson, Samuel Brown ; several former members of the Weather...
.
The house
The townhouse at 18 West 11th Street was originally built in 1845. In the 1920s it belonged to Charles E. MerrillCharles E. Merrill
Charles Edward Merrill was an American philanthropist, stockbroker and co-founder, with Edmund C. Lynch of Merrill Lynch & Company .-Early years:...
, cofounder of Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York...
, who lived there with his family until 1931. The bombing is lamented in a poem by Merrill's son, the poet James Merrill
James Merrill
James Ingram Merrill was an American poet whose awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Divine Comedies...
, titled with the address of the house: "Shards of a blackened witness still in place. / The charred ice-sculpture garden / Beams fell upon. . . ."
Actor Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
and his wife Anne Byrne were living in the townhouse next door at the time of the explosion. He can be seen in the 2002 documentary The Weather Underground
The Weather Underground
The Weather Underground is a 2002 documentary film based on the rise and fall of the American radical organization The Weathermen. Using much archive footage from the time as well as interviews with the Weathermen today, the film constructs a linear narrative of the militant organization.The film,...
, standing on the street during the aftermath of the explosion.