In the late afternoon of February 3, 1990, two-day-old Steven Lyons was kidnapped from a Brooklyn hospital— a feat that seems nearly impossible with hospital security measures in 2020. Now, 30 years later, Shoe Leather reporters, Rachel and Elize, follow in the footsteps of the brazen baby-napper with the help of news archives, child abduction experts, and social media.

To read the full transcript, visit shoeleather.podcasts.library.columbia.edu

The Accident

Shoe Leather is an investigative podcast that goes behind the scenes of forgotten stories that shaped New York City. Go along with the team as they knock on doors and track down the people who were at the center of the news.

This season, we're going to 1970 Greenwich Village. A townhouse suddenly explodes. And authorities find out that it’s ground zero for the operations of the Weather Underground: a radical group of young revolutionaries who use violence to "bring the war home." Three members are killed in the explosion, two others escape. Police would later describe the townhouse as a “bomb factory.” What pushes a protest movement toward violence? What makes a group of mostly middle-class, college-educated young men and women decide to build a bomb?