Massachusetts Real estate lawyer pens book on domestic terrorist

By Chris Bergeron MetroWest Daily News ASHLAND, Mass. (AP) -- Michael M. Greenburg has decorated his law office with photographs of his family and sports stars but none of the owl-eyed "Mad Bomber" with the eerie smile whose disturbed mind he's probed in a fascinating new book. The veteran attorney who specializes in real estate law has cornered the market on a tabloid saga from another era: the bombing campaign of George Metesky who terrorized New York City in the 1950s. Greenburg has just published "The Mad Bomber of New York: The Extraordinary True Story of the Manhunt that Paralyzed a City." And it's a blast. "I like stories that history has almost forgotten," said Greenburg in his office in downtown Ashland. "I'm always looking for a topic that'll make readers ask, 'Why haven't I heard of this story?'" Starting in 1951, Metesky left bombs in restrooms, phone booths, movie theaters, Grand Central Terminal, Port Authority and the RCA Building, often sending letters to newspapers promising "Bombs will continue until the Consolidated Edison company is brought to justice." Observing Metesky's deeply personal, if misguided, search for justice, Greenburg said there's a "long line from the garage where he made his bombs to the Unabomber's cabin" in Montana. Metesky signed his notes F.P. for "Fair Play" and Unabomer Ted Kaczynski marked his devices F.C. for "Freedom Club." But Greenburg believes they shared little beyond mental illness. "George Metesky didn't espouse any social agenda or political beliefs and wasn't out to change the world. He held a personal grudge and was looking for a forum to expose Con Ed. In some ways, that makes him very human," he said. Greenburg noted that Worcester-born radical Abbie Hoffman identified himself as Metesky after demonstrating in the New York Stock Exchange and published an obscenely-titled revolutionary handbook under Metesky's pseudonym. As if researching a complicated deed, Greenburg has recreated Metesky's warped crusade against his former employer, Consolidated Edison, from interviews with bomb squad investigators, defense attorneys and psychiatrists and piles of police reports, court transcripts and newspapers accumulated over the last several years. Metesky's bespectacled, moon face nearly covers the front page of the Jan. 22, 1957, edition of the New York Journal American under the bold headline: "Letters to Journal Trap the Mad Bomber." Copies of black-and-white photos spill across Greenburg's desk. They show the three-family house in Waterbury, Conn., where Metesky lived with his sisters, taunting notes he sent to newspapers demanding justice, the garage where he fashioned bombs on a lathe and Alice Kelly, the "sharp-eyed brunette file clerk" who recognized Metesky's handwriting in complaints to Con Ed, providing the clue that led to his arrest. A successful attorney with his own practice and married father of two sons, Greenburg seems to have nothing in common with the life-long bachelor who transformed a grudge into a 16-year-long vendetta. In his meticulously researched 316-page book, he portrays Metesky as an obsessive loner who planted at least 33 homemade bombs - he called them "units" -- because his former employer had denied claims for compensation for injuries to his lungs that made it impossible to work. Greenburg has crafted "Mad Bomber" as three books-in-one: It's a crime story and police procedural; it's a social history about a "spinsterish" bachelor who built bombs like other guys made model airplanes; and it's revealing psychological portrait of a fragile mind pushed beyond the breaking point by an indifferent bureaucracy. "There isn't a doubt in my mind Metesky was organically disturbed. The psychiatrist who examined him after his arrest described him as one of the most dangerous paranoids he'd ever analyzed," said Greenburg. "But I find (Metesky) sympathetic. He purposefully kept his devices small. They were potentially lethal but no one was ever killed. He suffered profoundly because of his injury and persistently asked for compensation but it never came." Metesky's story didn't end with his arrest. Awaiting trial, he seemed to enjoy the opportunity to rant against Con Ed but was convinced the judge was part of the vast conspiracy against him. Determined by psychiatrists to be a paranoid schizophrenic, he was committed to the Matteawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane for nearly 20 years and was a model prisoner. He was paroled and returned to his Waterbury home where he lived quietly for 20 years until his death in 1994 at the age of 90. Greenburg, who lives in Medway, always liked to write but might seem an unlikely biographer for Metesky. After writing, but not publishing, "Missing on Mars" as a 9-year-old, he never got anything into print except legal articles he wrote for the Pepperdine University School of Law Review. But in 2005 his passion for writing revived after reading "The Last German Slave Girl" for a history course at Framingham State College taught by Gary Hylander. "As I read it I thought, this is the kind of book I'm equipped to write," Greenburg recalled. "As an attorney, I was fascinated by the human interest behind the case law. I decided that was the kind of book I wanted to write." Casting about for a subject, he discovered the story of real estate mogul Edward "Daddy" Browning who married 16-year-old aspiring actress named Frances "Peaches" Heenan in 1926. Published in 2008, Greenburg's "Peaches & Daddy" captured in lively prose the self-indulgence of the 1920s and the tabloid coverage that turned their high profile divorce into national entertainment. Since finishing "Mad Bomber," Greenburg has been exploring new ideas for his next book and has been thinking about an American hero with a secret. The framed photos on his wall include Muhammad Ali, Willie Mays, the U.S. Olympic hockey team and John Quincy Adams. Hmmmmmm. Who's next? Published: Mon, Jun 20, 2011