1970 accidental detonation of bomb in New York City
The Greenwich Village townhouse explosion occurred on March 6, 1970, in New York City, United States. Members of the Weather Underground (Weathermen), an American leftist militant group, were making bombs in the basement of 18 West 11th Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood, when one of them exploded. The resulting series of three blasts completely destroyed the four-story townhouse and severely damaged those adjacent to it, including the then home of actor Dustin Hoffman and theater critic Mel Gussow. Three Weathermen—Ted Gold, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins—were killed in the blast, while two survivors, Kathy Boudin and Cathy Wilkerson, were helped out of the wreckage and subsequently fled.
Responding firefighters initially believed the blast to have been an accidental gas explosion, but police suspicions were aroused by the two survivors' apparent disappearances, and by that evening other bombs the Weathermen had built were found. They had been meant for several targets: a noncommissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix in South Jersey that night, and the administration building at Columbia University. The unexploded dynamite found in the ruins could have destroyed all the houses on both sides of the block had it detonated in the blast. Robbins and Oughton were in the basement building the bomb intended for Fort Dix, later described as the largest explosive device ever found in Manhattan, when it exploded prematurely; Gold had just returned from running an errand and was killed by the collapse of the building's facade. Boudin and Wilkerson were on the upper floors and survived with only minor injuries. It took nine days of searching to find the explosives and bodies; Oughton and Robbins' were so badly dismembered and mutilated that they had to be identified through dental records.
The two survivors, already facing assault charges in Chicago for their actions during the Weathermen's Days of Rage there the preceding October, were charged with unlawful possession of dynamite. After their bail in the Chicago case was revoked when they failed to show up for trial shortly after the explosion, Boudin and Wilkerson remained fugitives from justice for a decade. Wilkerson voluntarily surrendered in 1980 and served 11 months in prison on the charge. Boudin eventually was apprehended in 1981 and pleaded guilty to felony murder and robbery in the Brink's case in exchange for a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.
Robbins, recalled as an inexperienced bombmaker who refused to take any suggestions that might have improved safety and stuck to the way he had been told to build the bombs, had hoped that the bombings would do serious damage and inflict enough casualties for the Weathermen to be taken seriously by their putative allies in the Black Panthers as revolutionary opponents of the Vietnam War and institutionalized racism, since the group's previous bombings had generally done little more than inconvenience their targets. The self-destructive failure of their plot had the opposite effect: most of the members left, and most support from the greater radical left-wing community evaporated. Those who remained, including Wilkerson, learned more about explosives and bombmaking; their campaign continued for another six years. A new, modernist house similar in appearance was built on the site in 1978; its value has risen into the millions.
Background.
The Weather Underground had been formed from the remnants of Students for a Democratic Society in June 1969, by about a hundred activists who had come to believe that armed struggle was necessary to reform American society. At that meeting, the Weathermen, who had taken their original name from the line "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" in Bob Dylan's 1965 song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" had discussed what actions they might take, and against what targets. The consensus was that the police and the military were legitimate targets, representing the urban racism that their allies the Black Panthers most strongly opposed, and the Vietnam War. Members present recall that while the topic of whether their actions would necessarily involve taking life was largely avoided, beyond general agreement that they should not do so indiscriminately, their actions would likely kill police officers and military personnel.
After the meeting, the Weathermen split into three groups, based in San Francisco, New York City and the Midwest, under the leadership of Howard Machtinger, Terry Robbins and Bill Ayers respectively, to plan and carry out bombings. Some participated in the October 1969 Days of Rage protests in Chicago, which led to several arrests of the group's leadership for incitement to riot. They were preceded by the first Weatherman bombing, which destroyed a memorial statue to the city police killed in the 1886 Haymarket affair; no arrests have ever been made.
The three groups worked entirely independently, and competed to carry out the boldest attacks in the belief that doing so would increase support for the group and its actions. Machtinger's group carried out the first Weather Underground bombing, with explosives detonating shortly after midnight on February 13, 1970, during shift change at the Berkeley, California, police headquarters. The pair of bombs caused considerable property damage and injured several officers, one severely, but did not kill any, disappointing the other members. Bombs left by the Midwestern group outside Detroit police headquarters were discovered before they detonated.
In New York, the Weathermen at first attacked police stations and the house of a judge with Molotov cocktails. Robbins wanted to do something bigger, and began planning. When he learned from Cathy Wilkerson that her father, a radio executive with whom she had a difficult relationship, would be away from his Greenwich Village townhouse for several weeks while he vacationed in St. Kitts with her stepmother, he asked her if she could get the key so the Weathermen could have a central place to work from. She told her father, who was planning to sell the house soon so he and his English-born wife could move back to her native country, she needed a place to recuperate from the flu, and he gave her the key.
Building.
The Wilkersons' Greek Revival townhouse at 18 West 11th Street was built in 1845, part of a group of contemporary houses on the south side of the street between Fifth and Sixth avenues known as the Brevoort Row after its developer, Henry Brevoort. In the 20th century it was home to a series of prominent New Yorkers, starting in the 1920s with Charles E. Merrill, co-founder of the Merrill Lynch investment bank. His son, poet James Merrill, was born in the house.
In 1930, when James Merrill was five, his father sold the house to Howard Dietz, a Broadway lyricist and film studio executive, leaving the new owner a note wishing him the best of times in "the little house on heaven street." Dietz, composer of the standard "Dancing in the Dark", lived there for more than three decades, with three different wives, becoming known among his neighbors for the lavish parties he threw, where the furniture would sometimes be removed and stored in a van outside so that as many 250 guests could dance all night inside.
Dietz sold 18 West 11th to Wilkerson and his second wife in 1963; the next year Wilkerson celebrated his 50th birthday with another lavish party similar to Dietz's, a masked ball with 50 guests that continued past midnight; Cathy Wilkerson and her sister, both daughters from their father's previous marriage, were among the guests. Mel Gussow, theater critic for "The New York Times" during that period, who lived next door at 16 West 11th, remembers on several occasions returning from the theater late at night with his wife and seeing a formally dressed Wilkerson greeting guests at the door. Inside the house's 10 rooms, Wilkerson kept his collection of bird sculptures in the panelled library and the antique furniture he restored in the subbasement; the house still had its original Hepplewhite furniture and fireplace mantels. Wilkerson had added a sauna and a fountain with mirror in the backyard garden.
Gussow was not the only luminary in the neighborhood. Actor Dustin Hoffman (who can be seen in the documentary "The Weather Underground" (2002) standing on the street after the explosion), his then wife Anne Byrne and her daughter Karina from a previous marriage, whom Hoffman had adopted, lived below them in 16 West 11th; the building was owned by painter Jane Freilicher and her husband Joe Hazan. Susan Wager, a socialite, theater producer and former wife of Henry Fonda, also lived nearby.
Preparation and construction.
The Weathermen purchased a large quantity of dynamite and a number of electric fuses for $60 ($ in 2023) in New Hampshire in early March. After a meeting they designated three targets, including a noncommissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix, which was due to take place on March 6. It was reported that "arguments went on day and night" in the townhouse, with Kathy Boudin advocating that they kill as many people as possible with anti-personnel bombs. Diana Oughton reportedly had misgivings, although others present say she never showed them. Wilkerson wrote later that she felt powerless to stop what was going on in her father's house. Theodore Gold threatened to kill one close friend after he had a breakdown over the plan at one gathering.
None of the Weathermen had experience with explosives, and Robbins and Wilkerson did not even understand the basics of electricity. They worked up a simple timer and trigger device that lacked any safety features, and packed the dynamite with sharp roofing nails. Robbins was unwilling to deviate from the way he had been told to build the bomb, and unwilling to listen to suggestions from anyone else.
Explosion.
Robbins had chosen the dance at Fort Dix as their target; other reports indicate that only some were intended for the dance, with the rest to be detonated inside the administration building at Columbia University. The morning of March 6, he and Oughton were making final preparations in the same subbasement where James Wilkerson restored furniture, while Boudin and Wilkerson, both of whom were due to appear in court in Chicago a few days later over assault charges against them from the Days of Rage, were upstairs cleaning the house in preparation for Wilkerson's parents' return that evening. Other members were preparing their disguises for that night.
Shortly before noon, Gold left to get some cotton balls Robbins needed, according to Wilkerson. She began ironing a sheet and heard Boudin beginning to shower upstairs. A few minutes later, she heard a dull roar from the basement and watched as the carpeted floor broke in several places beneath her, letting through a red glow as shards of broken wood and plaster erupted from it. After a second explosion, the floor collapsed and Wilkerson recalls nothing for a while afterwards.
Anne Byrne Hoffman was returning from an errand via taxi. The driver overshot 18 West 11th, putting her two houses away from the explosion. She had just stepped out of the vehicle when the first explosion occurred; had the driver stopped at the right address she and he would have been exposed to the full force of the blast. She ran into her house and found the sitter and the family dog terrified; outside the fire had already begun. Gussow's wife and son were at the Fifth Avenue corner; she ran to the house herself after leaving her son with a friend.
The lower floors of the townhouse had been destroyed, and much of the front facade blown out. Other buildings on the street had windows blown out, including the Hoffman home. Inside the remains of the townhouse, Wilkerson regained awareness, covered in dust and soot. She called for Robbins.
Immediate aftermath.
Oughton and Robbins were killed by the blast. Gold was returning to the townhouse and was crushed by the collapsing facade. Wilkerson regained awareness and heard Boudin nearby on the edge of what was now a crater in the basement; the two were able to link hands and escape just as a fire built up behind them. Just after they got out, the fire built up into another explosion, blowing out the wall of Hoffman's house and knocking his desk into the crater.
A police officer and an off-duty New York City Housing Authority patrolman rushed into the chaos in search of survivors. The latter had heard Wilkerson in the ruins, but after she left he was