The Suspicious Explosion that Sidelined Kossar’s Bialys on Clinton Street [HISTORY]
This image has been archived or removed.
While Kossar’s Bakery remains shuttered for its requisite retail makeover, we thought it a good time to revisit a sordid episode in its decades-running history. A story to bide the time, if you will.
Next year, the Lower East side bakery celebrates eighty years in business. Much of that history was made at its current address in Seward Park. But it all began at 145 Clinton Street in 1936, in an area currently slated for Essex Crossing over-development. Mirsky and Kossar’s was the original name, taken from founders Isadore Mirsky and Morris Kossar.
Bialys were so the bomb in those days that that’s what happened. Allegedly.
Twenty-two years after its founding (1958), Kossar’s was sidelined due to a suspicious early-morning explosion. The blast handily shattered the plate glass window and blew open the iron door to the cellar. No one was injured, but the namesake’s mother, who lived upstairs, was taken to Gouverneur Hospital as a precaution.
The police, whose former precinct house operated down the block, found a fifty-foot length of wire strung from an iron support in the bakery’s basement to 141 Clinton two doors down. There they found a wired connection to a 9-volt dry cell battery, according to the New York Times. A bomb.
This image has been archived or removed.
From the New York Times
Now, for context…
Apparently there had been some controversy after Kossar’s aligned with the Local 3 of the Bakers and Confection Workers Union. Until that point, they were part of the Bialy Baker Association with six other local businesses. But a two-week strike against the bialy gang, so to speak, forced them to cave.
There isn’t much subsequent material about the blast. Was this explosion an act of revenge by the Association?
Recent Stories
Hinds Talk the ‘Prettiest Curse’ and Love for NYC [Interview]
Spanish indie rock outfit Hinds drops their much anticipated third album today, The Prettiest Curse. Prior to the pandemic, I chatted with lead singer and guitarist Carlotta Cosails. An unabashed fan, my goal was to avoid becoming awkward fangirl, Mel, from Flight of the Conchords. A nearly impossible feat, as Hinds’ first two albums, Leave […]
The Reason You Don’t See Trash Cans on the Lower East Side
You may have noticed the lack of trash cans on street corners around the Lower East Side this week. Vanished seemingly overnight. As a precaution this week, the city quietly removed receptacles from neighborhoods overwhelmingly hit by unrest and looting following the killing of George Floyd. It’s estimated that roughly 2,000 were temporarily towed citywide, […]
Pink Protest Signage Screams Poor Taste at the Museum of Ice Cream
When New York City begins its reopening on Monday, SoHo will be boarded up as if for a hurricane, and the streets emptier than when the COVID-19 shutdown began. Signage of the luxury retailers has also been erased by the appearance of bare plywood, Black Lives Matter graffiti, or both. But the Museum of Ice […]
A Scene, Unseen: LES Music Venues, Musicians Stay Visible Despite Closures
By the time this article is published, 11 weeks of self-isolation will have passed. It’s been 11 weeks since many of us have gone to work, since grocery stores have felt safe, and since handshakes have felt friendly. And those are only the most banal, everyday changes. When it comes to the moments we share […]
Lower East Side Businesses Boarded up their Storefronts Amidst Citywide Looting
When the pandemic hit, it was mainly the luxury stores in SoHo that began boarding up the windows for fear of looting. It’s now a reality in the atmosphere following the controversial death of George Floyd, an African American man who died in Minneapolis police custody. For days, looters took to the streets, oftentimes piggybacking off […]
