1977 New York City Bombings

Date: August 3, 1977
Location: Mobil Oil Building, 150 East 42nd Street, New York City
Appears In: Book 2
Jump Type: Historical Jump

What Happened

The Puerto Rican nationalist group FALN detonated a bomb inside the ground-floor personnel office of the Mobil Oil Company building during the morning rush, killing one man and injuring several others. A second device had been found and safely evacuated earlier that morning at a nearby building. Bomb threats that followed forced the evacuation of roughly 100,000 workers from buildings across Manhattan, including the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building.

Historical Context

The bombing was part of a sustained campaign of over 130 attacks carried out by FALN between 1974 and 1983, primarily in New York and Chicago, in pursuit of Puerto Rican independence. It remains a largely unresolved case—no one was ever convicted specifically for the Mobil Building bombing, though a woman was later charged based on fingerprint evidence.

Timeline of the Event

A bomb is discovered and safely evacuated at a Department of Defense office earlier that morning.
A second device detonates in the Mobil Oil Company personnel office around mid-morning.
One man is killed and several others are injured in the blast.
Threats of additional bombs prompt evacuation of roughly 100,000 workers across Manhattan.
FALN claims responsibility in calls to media and a note left near Central Park.

The Five Seconds Connection

In Five Seconds Too Long, Megan and Marco land inside the Mobil employment office minutes before the blast, mistaken for job applicants waiting to be seen. Marco recognizes one of the men in the room from an old family photograph—Charles Steinberg, a name he knows from his grandmother's stories, present that morning for reasons that were never supposed to intersect with a bomb threat. The jump becomes intensely personal for Marco in a way none of the team's destinations have been before.