Dietz was married three times . He married Elizabeth Bigelow Hall in 1917 . They divorced in 1936 . In 1930 , the couple had bought a townhouse on 18 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village from stockbroker Charles E. Merrill , founder of Merrill Lynch . The townhouse was later bought by advertising executive James Platt Wilkerson , whose daughter Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson was a member of the far-left terrorist organization Weather Underground ; Wilkerson 's associates were assembling a bomb in the basement in 1970 when it exploded and destroyed the townhouse
exploded and destroyed the townhouse
Greenwich Village townhouse explosion
Howard Dietz