Tsarnaev Brothers Planned to Bomb New York City’s Times Square

This just in, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has just held a press release via Bloomberg Radio stating that he learned last night, that the FBI has disclosed to him that the Tsarnaev brothers’ next target was Times Square in New York City, if they had made it out of the Boston area. NYC officials did not mention a specific area that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were targeting within Times Square, but did share that they would have arrived at “2 or 3 ‘o clock in the morning.”

Mayor Bloomberg, speaking from City Hall in New York, said that the FBI learned from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that their plans were to “detonate additional explosives in Times Square,” adding that the “surviving member” would have been met with a substantial if they would have made it out of Boston and Watertown.

Moreover, Mr. Bloomberg also mentioned that the two would have likely not seen the extensive camera network in Times Square, which would have potentially aided in their capture before such an event would have taken place.

It is currently unknown if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were planning on using a similar type of pressure cooker bomb used in the Boston Marathon Bombing in Times Square.

According to various sources, it is  estimated that between 1.4 million and 1.6 million people walk in Times Square daily, with less than 300,000 working in nearby office buildings. For a look at the population density of Times Square at 2-3am on a regular morning, to determine what damage the Tsarnaev brothers could have done with multiple explosives, see this walkthrough below:

As can be seen, the population is not as dense as it is during peak traffic hours, but any attack in this area–at any time of the day–would have affected a significant amount of civilians in the area.