"Errant" Subway Excavation Explosion Rocks Manhattan's Upper East Side

I'm pretty used to the blasting after two years of this, but today's "errant" explosion about knocked me out of my chair. The New York Times is on it:

“We were doing a controlled blast,” said Adam Lisberg, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, “when clearly something went awry and an explosion was felt at street level.” The blast occurred around 12:45 p.m. Michael Horodniceanu, president of the M.T.A.’s capital construction division, said that workers had been blasting to clear an escalator wellway from the street to the subway, but that “we do not know why” the blast caused damage up on street level. Windows were cracked on several floors of the building at the southwest corner of Second and 72nd that houses the Kolb art gallery, including in the gallery itself. Inside it, people could be seen inside cleaning up what looked like debris.

Tomorrow I may be blogging with the Morlocks. Poor Shelley is still under the bed. (Tweets via Gothamist)

UPDATE: I went downstairs to take a few photos, but they've already cleared the rubble. Nothing left now but cops, reporters, news helicopters, and a bunch of chagrined sandhogs counting the blown out windows.