Bomb Threat Closes Broadway

A New York Police Department bomb squad was called to investigate a "suspicious package" that was left in Pinnacle restaurant at the corner of 115th Street and Broadway in the early hours of Friday morning.

Police responded to the local deli and pizzeria after a customer left an unidentified package he was carrying at about 11:30 p.m. Thursday evening. According to Augustinos Kim, who was working at the cash register at the time, "the police said it [the package] was strange."

According to Kim, three or four men in their late 20s accompanied the unidentified individual. "I didn't think he [the man who left the package] was a Columbia student."

The NYPD cordoned off the two blocks of Broadway between 114th and 116th Streets to all car and pedestrian traffic shortly after 2 a.m., and prevented vehicles from driving from driving along Broadway between 113th and 116th Streets.

"I saw the SUV and I thought somebody got hit...I didn't think it was a suspicious package" said Tracy Lee, CC '09, who first noticed the commotion when he was leaving his dorm.

According to eyewitness reports, Pinnacle was evacuated at approximately midnight on Friday, with emergency vehicles appearing shortly afterwards. The number of police vehicles continued to multiply and at about 1:45 a.m. a bomb squad arrived along with two unmarked black SUVs.

At approximately 2 a.m. a uniformed member of the NYPD Bomb Squad emerged from a police truck wearing full body armor and walked into Pinnacle. About 15 minutes later, he emerged empty-handed, and police vehicles began to leave the scene.

One uniformed police officer was overheard saying, "It's not what they thought it was," as the officers were preparing to leave. By the end of the saga, three ambulances, two firetrucks, and many more police vehicles had arrived on the scene.

Josh Hirschland contributed to this article.