Dear Commons Community,
An explosion caused by what the authorities believe was a homemade bomb injured at least 29 people on a busy sidewalk in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan last night. A second explosive device was found four blocks away. As reported by the New York Times:
“Mayor Bill de Blasio called the explosion “an intentional act” but initially said there was no connection to terrorism. He cautioned that the authorities had just begun their investigation into the blast, which reverberated across a city scarred by terrorism and vigilant about threats just days after the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Whatever the cause,” Mr. de Blasio said, “New Yorkers will not be intimidated.”
The explosion, which occurred around 8:30 p.m., prompted the shutdown of a wide swath of Manhattan south of Midtown. The Police Department said at 1:15 a.m. Sunday that 14th Street to 32nd Street was closed to traffic between Fifth and Eighth Avenues until further notice.
A grim Mr. de Blasio, speaking at a news conference at the scene, said “injuries are significant.” But for the moment, he said, none of them were life-threatening.
Many of the injuries were caused by shrapnel from the explosion, which witnesses said seemed to have come from a sidewalk Dumpster on West 23rd Street near the Avenue of Americas. Images of a twisted Dumpster in the middle of 23rd Street quickly proliferated on Twitter.
The explosion shattered windows, damaged cars and sent crowds running from the scene.
“I heard a big boom,” said Luke McConnell, who was visiting from Colorado and had been headed toward a restaurant on West 27th Street. “I felt it, like a concussive wave, heading towards me.”
“Then there was a cloud of white smoke that came from the left side of 23rd Street near Sixth,” he said. “There was no fire, just smoke.”
Witnesses said they could feel the explosion from several blocks away. Daniel Yount, 34, said he was standing on the roof of a building at 25th Street and Avenue of the Americas with friends.”
“We felt the shock waves go through our bodies,” he said.
A law enforcement official said investigators were trying to figure out who was behind the explosion and what the motivations might have been.
“It likely came from an improvised device,” said one city official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation. “We don’t understand the target or the significance of it. It’s by a pile of Dumpsters on a random sidewalk.”
The other device, on West 27th Street, was described as resembling a pressure cooker like the one used in the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, the official said.”
Mayor de Blasio is absolutely correct in stating that New Yorkers will not be intimidated by this.
Tony
