Police are probing whether an early morning explosion at an Upper East Side Starbucks is the work of pranksters or related to a larger pattern of unsolved blasts around Manhattan.
No one was injured in the small explosion, which happened around 3:30 a.m.
Investigators were looking into the similarities between the explosion and others that have taken place in the city over the last four years, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. The bomb went off around the same time of day as an explosion at the British consulate in May 2005, another at the Mexican consulate in October 2007 and one at the Times Square military recruiting station in March 2008.
A law enforcement source says the device that exploded outside Starbucks was a white plastic container wrapped in black tape. It was filled with low grade explosives of still undetermined origin.
A resident of the apartment building above the Starbucks told police that two teenagers, about 15 years-old, were in the vicinity of the Starbucks at the time of the blast. Police are also trying to locate any surveillance video that may have captured images of someone planting the explosives. In the previous bombings, a bicyclist was seen in the area prior to the explosions.
"We don't know the motive. Obviously it is a cause for concern, but we're going to do an in-depth investigation," Kelly said.
Police also were looking at whether the Starbucks — at 92nd Street and Third Avenue, a few blocks from the Guggenheim Museum — was the target. By evening time, the Starbucks was open again for business.
"It could have killed somebody so there's somebody with a sick mind out there," Mayor Bloomberg said. "And maybe more than one is out there."
Residents living above the coffee shop were evacuated for a time but were allowed to return to their apartments later in the morning.
