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When 37,000 Pounds Exploded: Brooklyn's Pier That Shuddered 35 Miles
When 37,000 Pounds Exploded: Brooklyn's Pier That Shuddered 35 Miles
The afternoon smelled of burning rubber before anyone knew how close they were to disaster: 37,000 pounds of explosive cord and foam rubber scrap ignited on Pier That-Fifth Street and the sound carried 35 miles. Ten people died, 274 were injured, and one man standing a thousand feet from the blast was killed without touching the fire - so how did that much explosive material end up on a commercial pier surrounded by 25,000 workers?
In this episode, we tell the sequence of events on December 3, 1956 at Industry City, describe…
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