BY TANANGACHI MFUNI, DENIS HAMILL and TINA MOORE
Wednesday, September 5th 2007, 4:00 AM
Imperioli’s theater, Studio Dante.
Bada bing – bada boom!
A Manhattan building owned by “Sopranos” star Michael Imperioli was shaken by an explosion early yesterday when a pipe bomb detonated outside.
Imperioli, who played Tony Soprano’s nephew on the hit HBO series, told the Daily News he was “baffled” by the blast, which did not hurt anyone but terrified several residents.
“I don’t know anything about this bomb in front of my theater,” Imperioli said. “I’m completely baffled.”
Police officials said they were unsure if the 1 a.m. blast had any connection to Imperioli or his performance space, Studio Dante, on the first floor of the building on 29th St. between Seventh and Eighth Aves.
Investigators said Imperioli had been locked in a dispute with a former tenant, but later said the disagreement wasn’t related to the blast. Imperioli said he wasn’t aware of any conflicts with tenants or neighbors.
“I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “You’ll get 10 different stories by the time this is finished.”
Whoever detonated the 2-by-4-inch bomb either planted it or threw it after lighting a fuse, police sources said. The explosion smashed a window of a nearby minivan, sent a large cloud of smoke into the sky and reverberated throughout the midtown neighborhood. The blast drew a large response of firefighters and cops, including officers from the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force. Tenants were evacuated from Imperioli’s four-story building.
“I heard some big explosion and I heard the car alarms in the neighborhood,” said Joe Brockett, 46, an advertising executive who lives in the building. “It was deep; it was not like a little firecracker.”
Mayor Bloomberg declared the blast wasn’t terrorism-related. Several neighborhood streets were closed temporarily as cops searched for other explosive devices.
First-grade teacher Jennifer Russo, 32, who lives two doors down from Imperioli’s building, said she was terrified by the blast. “My heart was pounding,” said Russo, who regretfully missed the first day at Public School 96 in the Bronx because she couldn’t get back into her home.
Flavio Souza, the 51-year-old local resident who owns the red Chevrolet minivan damaged in the blast, slept through the explosion. “It’s very bad these things happen,” said Souza, a bridge painter from Brazil.
Several residents of Imperioli’s building drank at the Molly Wee Pub at 30th St. and Eighth Ave. to pass the time after being forced from their homes.
“It shook the house; it knocked some oyster plates off the wall,” said Ken Holiday, 29, a student at the nearby Fashion Institute of Technology.
Imperioli said there are “drunks and druggies in the area late at night.” He said he had not been stalked or threatened and doesn’t believe he was the target.
Imperioli showed up at his building hours after the blast and did something his mob character would never do: He talked to the cops. “I told them all I know, which is basically nothing,” he said.
“It’s terrible,” he added. “This whole day felt like an hallucination. It’s surreal. … We have the greatest police force in the world. I’m confident they will come up with something.”
With Peter Kadushin and Erin Einhorn
::Tullycast:: 