Mercy College Evacuates Midtown Campus After Bomb Threat, Officials Say

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — Mercy College's Manhattan campus — located on West 35th Street blocks from Penn Station and the Empire State Building — was evacuated Wednesday and classes were cancelled due to a bomb threat, school officials announced.

Police searched the campus and declared the bomb threat to be unfounded, officers outside the West 35th Street building told Patch. The campus has been reopened, but building security is screening people trying to get inside.

Sophomore business student Sha, 18, told Patch that he was waiting outside the building for an hour to get his belongings.

"I had all my stuff up there," the student, who declined to give his last name, told Patch. "If I didn’t leave anything up there I would’ve been gone."

The investigation into the threat remains ongoing, cops at the scene told Patch.

Emergency messages posted to the college's Facebook page asked students to leave the West 35th Street building and not to return for evening classes.

"Mercy College officials are aware of an ongoing situation at the College’s Manhattan Campus. For those of you at our Manhattan Campus, we ask that you gather your belongings and leave the building quickly and calmly. Please refrain from using your cell phones until you are out of the building," school officials said on Facebook.

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Mercy College is a private, secular school with campuses in Dobbs Ferry, the Bronx, Yorktown Heights and Manhattan, according to its website. The school was founded in 1950 and offers 90 undergraduate and graduate degrees. Across its four campuses, the school has 210 full-time professors and approximately 10,099 students.

Patch editor Noah Manskar contributed to this report.

Photo by Patch