At that time I worked in mid-town Manhattan, one block south of Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building. From our offices we heard and felt the Exxon office bombing, which filled the center of the block from 42nd Street to 41st Street. Continental Can Co., across Lexington Ave from us had several bomb threats as did our building. The evacuations become so frequent our mgmt created a 16 digit timesheet job code for time lost in these events.
Add Fraunces Tavern, Selective Service on Whitehall St, Bank of Tokyo on Park Ave among others and it was the year of living dangerously in Mid-Town NYC.
Mr. Melville was ultimately convicted of plotting eight bombings:
The United Fruit Company warehouse at the Grace Pier on the Hudson River (July 27).
The Marine Midland building at 140 Broadway (Aug. 20).
The Federal Office Building at 26 Federal Plaza (Sept. 19)
The Armed Forces Induction Center at 39 Whitehall Street (Oct. 7)
The Chase Manhattan Bank at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza (Nov. 11)
The Standard Oil offices in the RCA Building at Rockefeller Plaza (Nov. 11)
The General Motors Building at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue (Nov. 11)
The Criminal Courts Building at 100 Centre Street (Nov. 12)
What's striking about this three person cell is that one of them was an FBI informant. Hmmmm....
I was there. Got up and there were hoses all over the streets ~ guess it kinda' misfired. My wife was there ~ although I hadn't met her ~ that would be years later.
Postal facilities are still designed to withstand and deter the kinds of bombings most common in the 1920s when the Anarchists thought their problem was America.