By Henry Goldman May 2 (Bloomberg) — New York detectives sought to identify a person seen in Times Square around the hour of yesterday’s attempted car bombing, while police and building owners stepped up security in midtown Manhattan. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said investigators are looking for a man caught on a video camera walking away from the site near Times Square where they found a Nissan Pathfinder SUV with an explosive device inside. Police plan to make the video public, Kelly said. As forensic experts examined the car, gathering fingerprints and its owner history through a recovered vehicle identification number, Kelly said he intends to deploy more officers than usual in midtown Manhattan and elsewhere to help ease tourists’ minds. “It wasn’t an accident; it was someone who brought this to the area to send a message,” Kelly told reporters, defining the crime as terrorism. “If this had detonated, it would have caused casualties, a significant fireball, and would have ripped the vehicle in half.” Transit agency officials said they expected the morning commute to be normal. They and some building owners said they had already upgraded security in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. “NYC Transit has remained at the highest state of alert since 9/11, reminding employees to report any suspicious activity,” said Paul Fleuranges , a spokesman for New York City Transit, which operates the subways and buses. Heightened Awareness He cited an April 30 incident in which track workers spotted someone in a tunnel near Bowling Green in lower Manhattan and turned the individual in to police as “an example of that heightened state of awareness.” Kelly said the person police are looking for, described as about 40 years old, was captured on a neighborhood surveillance camera as he hurried through Shubert Alley , a pedestrian walkway between 44th and 45th Street, steps away from where the explosive-laden car was parked. The person can be seen on the video removing his dark shirt and placing it in a bag, and while dressed in a red T-shirt, he walked from the scene “in a furtive manner,” Kelly said. Police were also on their way to Pennsylvania, where a tourist reported that he may have unintentionally photographed the person while taking snapshots of Times Square, Kelly said. ‘No Evidence’ of Taliban Investigators have “no evidence” that a group of Pakistani Taliban sympathizers were responsible for the attempt, although a self-described group took credit for it, Kelly said. He noted authorities have ruled out the group’s involvement in other attempted and successful attacks around the world after receiving similar messages in the past. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg , speaking to reporters this evening in Times Square as a crowd of tourists watched, said there is “no evidence” of a link to terrorist groups. The mayor, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, thanked the federal government for assistance from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. Relations between the city and federal authorities “have never been tighter,” Bloomberg said. “This is the crossroads of the world and people will continue to come here,” the mayor said before escorting Wayne Rhatigan, the police officer who was first on the scene, and his wife, to dinner several blocks from where the incident occurred. Federal Support President Barack Obama , speaking in Louisiana, where he had gone to inspect damage from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, praised the city’s police and fire departments, the FBI, and the street vendor who alerted police to the smoking car. “My national security team has been taking every step necessary to ensure that our state and local partners have the full support and cooperation of the federal government,” Obama said. “We’re going to do what is necessary to protect the American people to determine who’s behind this potentially deadly act and to see that justice is done.” Plans to host foreign ministers in New York at the United Nation’s Nuclear Proliferation Conference won’t be disrupted by the bomb scare, said U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley . The conference, which will draw participants from Europe, the Middle East and Asia, starts May 4. Among businesses stepping up security was Bank of America Corp., whose 54-story tower is situated about two blocks from the corner of West 45th Street and Broadway where the vehicle was parked. “Our corporate security team has increased uniform presence at One Bryant Park,” spokesman T.J. Crawford said in an e-mail. ‘9/11 in Mind’ The building “was built with 9/11 in mind,” said its owner, Douglas Durst , co-president of The Durst Organization, in a phone interview. Completed in 2008, the structure “has extra-wide staircases, it has pressurized stairs to keep smoke out, and it’s surrounded by bollards,” or protective traffic guards, he said. Durst, whose properties also include the Conde Nast building at 4 Times Square, said his company had installed security cameras and refitted buildings with blast-resistant glass and traffic buffers to protect against car bombs. At the 1,949-room Marriott Marquis Hotel , where 800 to 1,000 people were evacuated to ballrooms for about seven hours, “everything returned to normal” after guests were permitted to return to their rooms at about 2 a.m., said Kathleen Duffy, a spokeswoman for the hotel chain’s New York operations. The hotel is across the street from where the car was parked. ‘No Complaints’ “Guests were all very cooperative,” she said. “They understood why this was happening and we received no complaints.” Forensic investigators have examined eight one-pound (0.45- kilogram) bags of a granular material found in a gun box in the car, which they believe might be fertilizer, Kelly said. Timothy McVeigh used about 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer ingredient in the improvised explosive device in the 1995 truck bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City. The intended detonator of the Times Square bomb, Kelly said, was a 16-ounce can filled with consumer-grade fireworks. The car also held two five-gallon containers of gasoline and three propane tanks, wired with two clocks, the commissioner said. Kelly said officials have identified the owner of the vehicle and are trying to find and talk to the individual. To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Goldman in New York City Hall at hgoldman@bloomberg.net
INDUSTRY-NEWS COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE CAPITAL MARKETS NEWS & INFORMATION | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
