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Cyclist taped at recruit station before blast

NEW YORK — Police released footage from a private security camera on Thursday showing a cyclist riding up to the Times Square military recruiting station where a small bomb was detonated.

The video shows the cyclist getting off a bike at 3:40 a.m. Thursday and walking toward the building. A minute or so later, the person returned to the bike and rode away. A brief flash and a cloud of white smoke follows.

Click here to see a Defense Department report on the blast

A bike thought to be used in the crime was later found in the trash on West 38th Street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

No one was hurt in the blast, which caused minor damage to the landmark recruiting center.

But Kelly said the device, though “unsophisticated,” could have caused “injury and even death.”

The commissioner said a man told police that while buying a newspaper shortly before the blast, he noticed a cyclist in a hooded jacket — “his whole face was pretty much covered.” The cyclist was “riding very slowly and wearing a backpack,” the witness said.

In October, two small explosive devices were tossed over a fence at the Mexican Consulate on Manhattan’s East Side in 2007, shattering some windows; police said they thought someone on a bicycle threw the devices. At the time, police said they were investigating whether it was connected to a similar incident at the British consulate on May 5, 2005. No one was arrested in either incident.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the witness did not see anyone placing or throwing the explosive device.

Kelly said that “in 2005, 2007, dummy hand grenades were used and the explosive, black powder, was put into those grenades and that caused the explosion. Here, it may be similar powder — we still have to determine that. But it was placed in an ammunition box. That was the carrier for the explosive. There was no grenade.”

Kelly held up a similar green metal box at a morning press conference and said they were readily available in Army-Navy surplus stores.

The Times Square blast prompted a huge police response that disrupted transit at the “crossroads of the world.”

It left a gaping hole in the front window and shattered a glass door, twisting and blackening the metal frame of the building, which is on a traffic island.

“I was getting ready to set up the cart when I heard a loud explosion,” said Bashir Saleh, who runs a breakfast cart at 43rd Street and Seventh Avenue, across from the recruiting station. “I ran out, and saw smoke coming out.”

“I didn’t see it that second,” said David Hassan, another breakfast cart owner operating across the street from Saleh. “I saw smoke and there was a loud boom. I was scared. I’m still shaky.”

Both men said that an officer from the police substation, a block south of the recruiting station, immediately came running out. Police reinforcement arrived soon after, they said.

The military’s 1,600 recruiting stations nationwide were alerted to the New York incident and advised to use extra caution, said Douglas Smith, spokesman for the Army recruiting command.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said no official higher state of alert had been issued.

“We do get occasional vandals at our recruiting stations,” Whitman said, adding that he didn’t have figures on how many. “It’s unfortunate but it happens from time to time.”

He said New York recruiters would be working temporarily out of their Union Square office.

Bloomberg said the act “insults every one of our brave men and women in uniform stationed around the world.”

“Whoever the coward was that committed this disgraceful act on our city will be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Bloomberg said. “We will not tolerate such attacks.”

The recruiting center has drawn sporadic protests for many years, including in October 2005, when a group who call themselves the Granny Peace Brigade rallied there against the Iraq war. Eighteen activists, most of them grandmothers in their 80s and 90s, were later acquitted of disorderly conduct. The brigade issued a statement Thursday deploring the bombing.

Police cars and yellow tape initially blocked drivers from entering one of the world’s busiest crossroads, though some traffic was allowed through around the start of rush hour.

Guests at the Marriott Marquis on 46th Street said they heard a “big bang” and felt the building shake.

Terry Leighton, 49, from London, said he was on the 21st floor of the hotel when he heard the blast and looked out a window.

“I thought it could have been thunder,” he said. “I looked down and there was a massive plume of smoke. So I knew it was an explosion.”

At one point in the investigation subway trains passed through the Times Square subway station without stopping, but normal service resumed later in the morning. Police cars and tape blocked the streets.

The recruiting center was renovated in 1999 to better fit into the flashy ambiance of Times Square, using neon tubing to give the glass and steel office a patriotic American flag motif. For a half century, the station was the armed forces’ busiest recruiting center. It has set national records for enlistment, averaging about 10,000 volunteers a year.