Credit: Dangerous Minds / Al Ravenna

There’s a Doctor Who comic (yes, I know, stay with me) where The Doctor arrives in the real world and a fan shows him that his adventures exist in this world as a fictional television show.

The fan shows The Doctor one of the early episodes where an alien is quite obviously a man in a ridiculous suit and remarks that they must have looked much scarier in real life. “They looked exactly like that,” says The Doctor. “It was terrifying.”

The point is that there are a number of things we laugh at in fiction that in real life would be among the most frightening things to ever happen to us. Even the most absurd Batman villain would leave us paralysed with fear if we were really faced with one and they were really trying to kill us (except maybe the Condiment King), and we know this because for years, New York City was faced with someone who could have stepped straight off the pages of a Silver Age Caped Crusader comic.

One who, seemingly for the perverse joy he took in his crimes, would plant pipe bombs in public places and set them off. 33 he set in total, and of those bombs, 22 of them went off. Thankfully, no one was killed as a result of them, but 15 were gravely injured, and what’s more, the man responsible would go a full 16 years before he was caught. From 1940 to 1957, New Yorkers went about their day in fear that today could be the day that they step into Grand Central Station, Radio City Music Hall, the New York Public Library or hell, even a humble payphone and be blown into smithereens.

For that time, all they knew was that this was the work of someone with a vendetta against Consolidated Edison, because he made this clear from the very first bomb he laid. One that didn’t go off and was probably never intended to go off, as there was a note attached to it. One that said, “Con Edison crooks – this is for you.” And signed “FP” in block capital letters. Any further information was unbecoming for the next decade and a half. No matter what the cops tried, they just couldn’t work out FP’s identity.

Who was the “Mad Bomber” of New York?

In fairness to the police, after a few attacks in 1940 and 1941, they received another note saying that the attacks would be placed on hold until after the Second World War was over. If anything, he was even more true to his word, ceasing his attacks for a whole decade before starting his war back up in 1951. The loon’s share of his 22 successful bomb attacks happened over those next six years, fraying the nerves of a New York City populace still recovering from the Second World War.

However, the cops did have a motive to go on. They built a profile of every ex-employee of Continental Edison in the New York City area who had a reason for a grudge and would have the technical know-how not only to construct these bombs out of household appliances but also to plant them in the areas that the bomber put them in. Damningly enough, the cops were confronted with an avalanche of potential bombers. There were countless people with a bone to pick with Continental Edison, but one stood out above all as not only someone with a chip on their shoulder, but also the technical ability to actually pull this shit off.

George Metesky was an incredible engineer. Talented, smart and hard-working, he worked as a mechanic for Continental Edison after serving in the Marine Corps following World War I. This was until 1931, when he was caught in a boiler explosion that didn’t just knock him out cold, but filled his lungs with corrosive gas, giving him pneumonia that turned into tuberculosis. The accident left Metesky disabled, yet after collecting 26 weeks of sick pay, Continental Edison fired him unceremoniously.

Metesky tried to fight back, but they didn’t allow him to file a workers’ compensation suit as he waited too long after the incident. When Metesky tried to take the company to court over this, they paid off a number of his co-workers to perjure themselves, testifying against his claim and kneecapping his case. Left with no other recourse, Metesky turned to vigilante justice to get his own back. Ironically enough, after thousands of hours of police work and profiling, it was a Continental Edison clerk who finally got him.

Alice Kelly found that the wording of Metesky’s statements and letters to her company matched the wording used in the bomber’s letters, and after looking into his case, put two and two together and reported her findings to the police. Infuriatingly, the NYPD tried to pretend that it was one of their detectives who found Metesky’s file so they could claim the reward money for his capture, but eventually had to concede that it was Kelly’s work.

Metesky was arrested and committed to Matteawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane in 1957. A sad fate for someone who may have harmed innocents in his quest for justice, but nowhere near as many people as Continental Edison had in their time. So, who really was in the wrong here?