Small Bomb Explodes Outside Manhattan Studio
A small bomb exploded in front of a building a few blocks from Madison Square Garden early this morning.
The bomb went off at about 1:10 a.m. on a sidewalk in front of Studio Dante, a theater at 257 West 29th St. owned by a former Soprano's actor, Michael Imperioli.
Konrad Fiedler
Investigators leaving Studio Dante, a theater and building owned by 'Sopranos' star Michael Imperioli, where what police called a 'low grade' pipe bomb exploded just after 1 a.m. yesterday.
The explosion was likely not an act of terrorism, Mayor Bloomberg said. No one was hurt, police said.
Mark and Lisa Schwebke, who are vacationing in New York from Wichita, Kansas, were staying in the hotel across the street.
"It sounded like ‘kaboom,'" Ms. Schwebke, 51, an emergency room nurse, said of the explosion, which blew the windows out of a van parked nearby.
Mr. Schwebke, 47, a contractor, said they looked out the window and saw smoke that appeared to be rolling out of the first floor of the theater.
"We knew that wasn't normal," he said.
The NYPD bomb squad is investigating the explosion. Police said they did not yet have a suspect.
Residents living in the apartments above Studio Dante were evacuated, police said, and the street was closed until midmorning.
A spokesman for Studio Dante, Darren Molovinsky, said no one was in the studio when the bomb went off. The last show at the theater ended in June, and the next one isn't scheduled to begin until October.
Mr. Molovinsky said police are questioning the theater owners and employees, but added they are unaware of who might have planted the device. Their only enemies, he said, are "maybe fictional."
