On March 6, 1970, I was
having a beer at the Cedars. The Cedars was a great old place on
University Place. The bar itself was beautifully carved heavy dark wood with a
copper top. Behind it was an equally impressive display housed in
stained glass cabinets. It was a neighborhood place. The light was
always just dim enough to let you feel comfortable drinking, no
matter what the hour. They also served up a respectable hamburger. On occasion I took impressionable young ladies from the Boroughs there to impress them with variable degrees of success. But that's another story.
Anyway, sometime on that day in March there was a loud noise outside and a sort of rumble. A few people
walked out and up to the corner of 11th Street to see what was happening. Returning
a few minutes later, they announced that there had been a gas main
explosion. We all pretty much agreed that that had to be an
unfortunate event, especially for anyone closer. It was best to stay where
we were.
This would not have been a
memorable day except that, as it later turned out, it wasn't a gas
explosion at all, it was dynamite. Lots of it. Enough to blow the
front off a townhouse at 18 West 11th Street and do some
serious damage to lots of surrounding buildings. Members of the
Weather Underground (remember them?) were using the place (owned by
the wealthy parents of one of them) to build bombs. Nasty bombs,
too. Firefighters later found an unexploded basket-ball sized mass of dynamite studded with nails.
A couple of the bomb
makers managed to get out. Officially, 3 died. One was ID'd by a fingerprint from the recovered tip of a single finger. This was before DNA
identification, so blood found in the ruins was blood and body bits and pieces were just
that, with no chance of making a connection to the former owners.
Later, someone painted graffiti on the sidewalk that read “5
Died.”
The graffiti was washed off and repainted many times. Someone left
flowers there every year for many years. Rumor had it that the FBI mounted an annual watch of the place.
Some time after the
blast, somebody built this grotesque looking house on that spot.
Everyone in the neighborhood hated it. Maybe a few quietly wished the old
tenants would return.
I walked by early this morning. A sign says the
building is for sale again. The 'No Trespassing” sign is a new
addition. Can't tell if the graffiti has been repainted before the snow, but so far, no flowers today.
2 comments:
I was married to a second generation Abstract Expressionist painter and you have no idea how many g.d. Cedar Bar stories I've heard...But not this one from the bar. The explosion happened 2-3 houses down from our friends' place on 11th Street, so I heard about it at their cocktail parties. I agree, that house is shockingly ugly!
As odd as the new building looks, the prior or prior, prior owners had a Paddington Bear in the quasi-bay window that had multiple costumes to reflect holidays and sports championship events. I really loved the Yankees outfit! But as Maury says, that’s another story. I would walk past the house with my kids on the way to PS 41 and would always
look to see what the bear was wearing. That I do miss. Linda J.
Post a Comment