Monday's gas explosion that destroyed a New York City office building has a rich espionage and conspiracy history. The building once housed a secret
meeting place for famous American businessmen involved in spying on and exchanging information about foreigners and financial information. The group
that met there worked for and with President Franklin Roosevelt and also had close ties to British intelligence services.
www.nytimes.com
The four-story Upper East Side town house that was destroyed in a gas explosion yesterday once served as a clandestine meeting place for a circle of
prominent New Yorkers who informally gathered intelligence for President Franklin D. Roosevelt before and during World War II, according to several
published histories.
Known simply as “the Room,” the covert network held monthly meetings to exchange gossip and tips in a bland rented apartment in the building at 34
East 62nd Street, as early as 1927.
No one lived in the apartment, and the phone number was unlisted. It is not clear where the apartment was in the building, which was completed in
1882. The meetings apparently continued until the early 1940’s.
Please visit the link provided for the complete story.
This building was important because it held a place in pre-CIA American espionage history. Many conspiracy theorists point to American industrialists
and business men as having been involved in all manor of conspiracies. Now a piece of that history is gone and we are left with developing story that
sabotaged gas lines and a suicidal doctor are to blame for it's destruction. Without jumping into wild speculation, I wonder if there is more to the
story than is as reported in the media.