This is CNN’s preliminary report. Not much is known yet, but the explosion happened Saturday evening in a trash receptacle near 23rd Street and 6th Avenue. It was definitely a bomb, not anything like a gas leak.
I used to live just three blocks from there, and I know how crowded that area can be on a nice Saturday evening. I’m surprised there haven’t been any fatalities.
I’m thinking that perhaps this and the USMC 5K pipe bombs are related; both were in trash receptacles and both happened within hours of each other.
[The AP story notes the same thing I did:
Malcolm Nance is giving some effective commentary on MSNBC.
They just said it happened outside 131 W. 23rd St. in Manhattan. Any NYC Dopers have an idea what is at that address that would result in someone planting a bomb?
Google street view isn’t giving me much to go on.
Well, there’s the King David Gallery 23. Apparently it used to be a restaurant called the Guilty Goose, but they closed.
It’s not necessarily targeted at a specific building or business. That might just have been a convenient spot to place it. If your aim is to cause fear, the specific location might not matter very much.
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](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/9d73ec17fb064db19d4c357237531f4f/new-york-city-mayor-bill-de-blasio-says-no-evidence-point)
I bet he could have said “there’s almost no evidence at all right now” and have been as accurate.
CNN says only one of three bombs went off in NJ, while a second one that didn’t go off has been found in Manhattan. Sounds like someone can’t make bombs too well. Thank goodness.
So it was The Girl Scouts? Yeah, maybe not Islamic terrorists, or the PLO/IRA/KKK, or some “terrorist organization”, but I think a bomb in a dumpster is probably loosely intended to incite terror.
The authorities are affirming it was an “intentional act” but stopping short of saying “terrorism.” Jealous lover? Business dispute? (I feel certain it will be some form of terrorism, just that they want to be sure.)
Chelsea is an upscale residential area. W23rd Street is a busy cross street that always has cars and pedestrian traffic. I don’t think it was targeted at a specific address. Just left in a busy area where it would cause damage.
So, when is setting an explosive device off not terror?
Two doors away, the other side of next door St. Vincent dePaul, was Tekserv which closed in August. I was there quite a few times for my Macs, pre Apple Store days and just to visit a very cool store. Really pinpoints the area for me.
Two bombings in the same day. It’s one heck of a coincidence if they aren’t connected.
Could have been much worse. Thankful there’s been no deaths.
When it’s inconvenient to label it as such.
They’re saying police are looking at a third possible unexploded device.
The second device was on 27th Street; a third possible device on 28th was apparently a false alarm.
Damn, I used to walk past these locations on a daily basis, especially 23rd Street. I lived on 25th.
Scratch that. No third device. It turned out to be just a bag of garbage.
As for whether the day’s events constitute terrorism, I think the word brings up in many people’s minds a) Isis, al-Qaeda etc; or b) some home-grown version thereof. But always for political or religious motivations. I think that’s why they’re not labeling it “terrorism” yet, in order to rule out some nutcase who might just be blowing up stuff for grins. Sure, that could be terrorism too, but these days a) or b) seems to have co-opted the definition.