On November 16, 1940, a man approached the window of a Consolidated Edison power plant and placed a small wooden toolbox on the windowsill, then left. The box sat unnoticed for two days, before a worker came across and opened it. Inside he found a short section of pipe, capped on either end, and wrapped in a piece of paper with the words “CON EDISON CROOKS - THIS IS FOR YOU - F.P.” written in neat, large handwriting. He reported it to the police, who confirmed it to be a bomb, but investigators had little to work with in discovering the perpetrator, and the case went cold. Ten months later, a similar bomb was found near the Consolidated Edison headquarters, this one with no note, but similarly unexploded when discovered. Police now understood they had the makings of a serial bomber, a notion that was cemented when they received a piece of mail from the man himself in December of 1941, shortly after the attacks on Pearl Harbor that propelled the nation to war: “I WILL MAKE NO MORE BOMB UNITS FOR THE DURATION OF THE WAR – MY PATRIOTIC FEELINGS HAVE MADE ME DECIDE THIS – LATER I WILL BRING THE CON EDISON TO JUSTICE – THEY WILL PAY FOR THEIR DASTARDLY DEEDS…”
It all began years earlier, when U.S. Marine veteran George Metesky was working as a middle-wage mechanic for Consolidated Edison in Manhattan. In 1931, while on the job at a Manhattan plant, Metesky suffered injury when a boiler suddenly backfired, knocking him to the ground and forcing him to breathe in hot, toxic fumes. Metesky found himself unable to work, and the weakened state of his lungs led him to develop cases of Pneumonia and Tuberculosis. The company continued to pay him for 6 months while he recovered, but when it became clear that he wouldn’t ever feel fit enough to go back to work, he was fired. He appealed the decision and filed for Workers Compensation, battling against Consolidated Edison for years, but his claims were all summarily denied and he was left jobless, without income, and unable to work. He decided to make this injustice known to the world.
Metesky made his return to planting bombs in 1951, a full decade after the first. While these were still pipe bombs, and of the same overall design using cheap pocket watches as timers and gunpowder as the explosive, their targets changed. Instead of being placed around Consolidated Edison structures, they were now in public places. The first Metesky bomb to actually explode had been placed in a cigarette urn next to the entrance to track 27 on the lower level of Grand Central Terminal. There was no note, and as ten years had passed, police didn’t connect it to the earlier failed bombings, instead passing it off as the work of “boys or pranksters,” a premise supported by the relatively weak explosion. His next three targets were all phone booths, one in Grand Central, another at the New York Public Library, and one outside the Consolidated Edison headquarters, near where police had found one of Metesky’s bombs a decade earlier. All four incidents, which occurred in March, April, August, and September of 1951 and caused no injuries, were linked together by the low power of the bombs - in each case they only destroyed the ventilator fans they had been lodged in, not even the entire phone booth - and were misattributed to some “addled prankster.” Not only that, but none of the stories in the New York Times had been featured on a page higher than 24. Metesky’s bombs, underpowered and unattributed to him, were failing in their purpose.
In October and November of 1951, Metesky sent two letters to the Herald Tribune, both in his recognizably precise and block-lettered style. “HAVE YOU NOTICED THE BOMBS IN YOUR CITY” he asked. “BOMBS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE CONSOLIDATED EDISON COMPANY IS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE FOR THEIR COWARDLY ACTS AGAINST ME. I HAVE EXHAUSTED ALL OTHER MEANS.” Metesky’s letter then proclaimed “I WILL BRING THEM BEFORE THE BAR OF JUSTICE- PUBLIC OPINON WILL CONDEMN THEM.” These letters, which went unanswered, also announced a change in tactics. “I WILL PLACE MORE UNITS UNDER THEATER SEATS IN THE NEAR FUTURE.” They were signed F.P.
The bombings continued, and Metesky made good on his promise to prey on theatergoers. Devices were found, both exploded and unexploded, at Radio City Music Hall, the Paramount Theater, and the Capitol Theater. Metesky would thinly slice open theater seats, just enough that the opening wasn’t noticeable, and slide his bomb into the cushioning. One such bomb went off during a showing of “White Christmas” at Radio City Music Hall. The theater was full, but the device was only strong enough to cut open the leg of the occupant of the unlucky seat. The theater manager described the sound of the explosion as being comparable to that of a large light bulb being broken. People were moved away from the site of the explosion, but most of the 6,200 occupants of the theater stayed to finish the movie. This one made the front page.
By 1956, Metesky’s bombs had achieved their desired effect. The letters he had sent to the Herald Tribune had been held back from publishing at the request of the police, but his continued bombings had served to make New Yorkers aware that their city was full of bombs. Dubbed “The Mad Bomber,” Metesky had expanded his target list further, placing devices in toilets, sinks, and train station lockers. Some were injured by the blasts, but none very seriously and there had been no deaths. Either way, pressure was mounting on the police to do something to stop this madman, especially so following the very public Radio City bombing.
When the Journal-American, a New York newspaper, published an open letter to the bomber offering to publish the details of his grievances in exchange for his confession, the sequence of events that led to Metesky’s arrest was set in motion. Finally getting what he wanted, Metesky wrote back, and in a series of letters revealed enough information about himself that investigators could track him down. He stated that he was injured on the job, and that he felt Consolidated Edison had mishandled his case and he was owed compensation. He agreed to a cessation of bombing for a time while this dialogue continued, and even revealed the locations of all the bombs he had placed, allowing police to find those that had yet to explode. Upon the newspaper’s prompting to reveal more details about his case against Consolidated Edison so they could help him sway opinion, Metesky named the specific date of his accident, which was enough to find him.
Strangely enough, it wasn’t the police who found him, but instead a clerk at Consolidated Edison working on her own to solve the case. Alice Kelly had followed the exchange in the Journal-American, and with the revelation of the date of the accident, dipped into the records and found the appropriate file naming George Metesky as the complainant. She reported it to to investigators, who quickly went to Metesky’s Connecticut home and arrested him, putting an end of the “mad bomber” of New York. The case went to court, but the judge diverted Metesky out of the regular process saying he was insane and therefore unable to stand trial. Metesky spent the next 17 years in a state-run mental health facility, where he was a model citizen and even passed his days learning more about the legal process through books and case law. He was then released back into the custody of one of his sisters, with whom he had lived before his incarceration, under the promise that he would regularly check in at his local mental health facility, which he did. Metesky lived there quietly for 20 more years before passing away at the age of 90 in 1994.
Metesky’s case, and the story of the “mad bomber” is fascinating for numerous reasons. His attempts to achieve his goals via public intimidation and fear-mongering, using potentially deadly and indiscriminate force as his tool, earn him a place as one of New York’s first terrorists. But while he attacked the city as a whole, there is a shred of humanity and desperation in his actions that leaves the observer with a modicum of sympathy for the man.
Bombing was not his first attempt at seeking retribution against Consolidated Edison. Metesky claimed to have sent over 900 letters to Consolidated Edison, the mayor, politicians, newspapers, and other outlets in the years following his accident. There were never any replies. He even tried to pay for newspaper advertising space to run an open letter to New York, in the hopes that he could make his mistreatment known to the world, but no newspapers would sell to him. It took nine years of these silent rejections for Metesky to reach the point of frustrated exasperation that pushed him into committing his criminal acts. And even then, it would seem he never even wanted to hurt anyone.
Starting with his first bomb, which he placed on that brisk November evening on the window of a Consolidated Edison power plant, the evidence is clear that he never meant deadly harm. Metesky had wrapped his note around the device, meaning that had it exploded the note would have been destroyed. Metesky never meant for this bomb to explode; this was a threat, and one that went unanswered, forcing him to up the ante. His second, which was discovered on the ground outside the Consolidated Edison headquarters, hadn’t even been armed and couldn’t have exploded. He purposefully built all of his explosives to be so vastly underpowered that, while the public would find itself under a siege of bombings, unless someone was literally holding one in their teeth, they probably wouldn’t be killed. When there was still no response, he moved his campaign to more public places like phone booths and theaters. But even when a bomb went off in an occupied chair, it was so weak that the unlucky soul who had been sitting there received only minor cuts to the leg. And this was the one that urged the situation, after years of sustained bombings, to the point where someone finally reached out to him and asked what he wanted. At this very moment, Metesky not only ceased bombing, but gave up the locations of the bombs that he’d laid but hadn’t gone off yet. He was eager to protect the innocent once he’d achieved his goal.
The real question at the heart of the situation, and the crux of Metesky’s tenuous grasp on sanity, was his injury. From September of 1931 onward, Metesky continuously claimed to be on death’s door. He’d suffered pneumonia and tuberculosis, and said that he spent he spent of most of his days in bed. This was the reason he couldn’t work, leading him to his resentment of Consolidated Edison and kicking off this whole ordeal. He even stated in one of his letters to the Journal-American: “My days on earth are numbered – most of my adult life has been spent in bed – my one consolation is – that I can strike back – even from my grave – for the dastardly acts against me.” He was a man without much to live for as he truly believed he would die any day. But this was obviously not the case.
Six months after his accident, Metesky was removed from the Consolidated Edison payroll after he was examined by company doctors and they found nothing wrong with him. He disagreed with their assessment and refused to show up to work, claiming disability, and resulting in his firing. He then carried out an organized bombing campaign from his workshop, where he worked every day, and hand delivered numerous devices across New York city, a day’s trip from his hometown in Connecticut. While Metesky may not have felt physically fit to return to the boiler business, he was no doubt capable of some level of work. It wasn’t until he found himself institutionalized that he began to believe he may live longer than a few more days. It seems that proper medical care, and perhaps assistance in attaining a less deluded mental state, saved George Metesky, who must not have been near death for all those years as he lived a full 63 years after his fateful accident.
In attempting to pass judgement on Metesky’s actions, we are left with a complicated figure. He was no doubt a criminal, who waged war on an innocent people in order to achieve his very personal goals. But alongside that, he was a tragic character: mentally ill and bedridden by his own delusions. Metesky was obviously not as sick as he thought, and likely could have found gainful employment had he thought it possible. And, even when he resorted to his own set of dastardly deeds and placed over 30 bombs around the city, they were never meant to harm, and only escalated to causing it after years of sustained ignorance of his actions by police and the public. Metesky should not be forgiven for what he did, but his monstrous actions were not those of a monster; they were a dying man’s last gasp at achieving justice before he couldn’t anymore. All he wanted was a fair deal, evidenced by the initials he attached to every letter and note he sent: F.P. for Fair Play.