On the morning of July 4, 1914, an explosion tore through the upper floors of a seven-story tenement at 1626 Lexington Avenue in the Harlem section of New York City, between 102nd and 103rd Streets. The blast occurred at about 9:15 a.m., roughly fifteen minutes after tenant Louise Berger, a member of the Lettish section of the Anarchist Red Cross and an editor of Emma Goldman's Mother Earth magazine, left the building for the magazine's offices. The New York Times reported the sound of the explosion was comparable to "a broadside from a battleship," and witnesses described debris and furniture thrown into the street, shattered windows in nearby buildings, and rooftop damage from falling rubble.
According to accounts compiled from historical sources, the explosion was caused by dynamite being assembled into a bomb by Charles Berg and Carl Hanson, both members of the Lettish section of the Anarchist Red Cross, working with Industrial Workers of the World member Arthur Caron. The group had reportedly obtained the dynamite from Russia and stored it in Berger's apartment. Plans discussed at the Ferrer Center allegedly called for the bomb to be planted at the Tarrytown, New York home of John D. Rockefeller. A separate explosion and fire did occur that evening at the Westchester Lighting Company in Tarrytown, near Standard Oil facilities.
The explosion killed Hanson, Berg, and Caron, along with Marie Chavez, a renter in the building who was not reported to have been part of the bomb plot. Caron's body was thrown onto the building's fire escape, while the bodies of Chavez and Hanson were found inside the apartment; Berg's body was reportedly torn apart by the blast. An additional twenty people were injured, seven seriously enough to require hospitalization. Another IWW member, identified in accounts as "Mike" Murphy, was in the apartment at the time but survived with only minor injuries and reportedly left the area before police could question him.
Louise Berger denied any involvement in the bomb plot, and police were unable to implicate her. Alexander Berkman, who had reportedly discussed the plot with the conspirators at the Ferrer Center, denied any involvement or knowledge of the plan; this denial was disputed by some contemporaries.
The explosion did not end the campaign of bomb plots targeting Standard Oil figures. In November 1915, a separate bomb was discovered at the Tarrytown home of Standard Oil president John D. Archbold and was defused by police before detonation.
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