At least one counterprotester threw a homemade bomb on Saturday during a violent clash with far-right protesters outside Gracie Mansion in Manhattan, the police commissioner, Jessica S. Tisch, said on Sunday.
Preliminary analysis of the device by the Police Department’s bomb squad found that it was “not a hoax device or a smoke bomb,” but “an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death,” Ms. Tisch wrote on social media.
Emir Balat, 18, the counterprotester accused of throwing that device and another smoking projectile, and Ibrahim Nikk, 19, who is accused of supplying one of them, were arrested on Saturday, the police said. No explosions or injuries from the devices were reported.
Charges against Mr. Balat, of Langhorne, Pa., and Mr. Nikk, of Newton, Pa., had not been determined as of Sunday, the police said.
Officers also arrested four other people, including Ian McGinnis, 21, of Philadelphia, who pepper-sprayed the counterprotesters. He was charged with reckless endangerment, assault and unlawful possession of noxious matter, the police said on Sunday.
The turbulent scene in one of New York City’s swankiest neighborhoods began with a plan by the far-right provocateur Jake Lang for a “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” demonstration near Gracie, the Upper East Side home of New York’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
Mr. Lang showed up with a goat and about 20 followers, who were wearing American flag hats and “Freedom” sweatshirts, echoing the slogan on a shirt worn by the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. As the day wore on, and the crowd of counterprotesters shouting at Mr. Lang grew to more than 100, tensions swelled.
One of Mr. Lang’s fellow protesters sprayed Mace at a group of counterprotesters, sending some doubling over in tears. Fistfights broke out among the crowd, and raw eggs flew through the air.
Then a counterprotester threw two smoking objects, one of which landed on East 87th Street in flames, prompting protesters to run for cover.
At least one of the devices was made from a jug that contained a sports drink bottle filled with explosive material, as well as bolts and screws and a “hobby fuse,” according to a senior law enforcement official.
The F.B.I.’s New York office later said it recovered two “suspicious objects” from Gracie Mansion during the protest and that its joint counterterrorism division was investigating the matter alongside the police.
Ms. Tisch said on Sunday that the police were working with the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors and that further analysis would be conducted on both devices.
The mayor and his wife, Rama Duwaji, were not home at the time of the protest, Ms. Tisch said. In a social media post on Sunday, Mr. Mamdani called Mr. Lang a “white supremacist” whose protest was “rooted in bigotry and racism,” but he added that “what followed was even more disturbing.”
“The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are,” the mayor said, thanking the Police Department for its response.
Even after the smoke cleared on Saturday, the chaos and shouting continued. Drums were banged. Someone threw a hot dog. Locals strolling to brunch and the gym took cover inside a Gristedes supermarket, many of them uncertain what had prompted the protests.
It was a strained moment filled with tensions both national and hyperlocal. Mr. Lang, a pardoned participant in the Jan. 6 riot, recently organized a counterprotest to demonstrations against the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis that descended into violent scuffles. Earlier this week, the conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg described Mayor Mamdani as a “jihadist” and a “radical Islam cockroach.” And on Friday evening, Mr. Lang showed up at a vigil for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s deceased supreme leader, in Washington Square Park, prompting more altercations.
Near the site of Saturday’s protest, some locals were rattled by the unrest. Inside the Gristedes, Kathryn Morlet said she had been trying to have a calm Saturday morning in her yoga class. Corinne Shaw was walking her son to the library so he could start a report on sparrows when they wound up in the swirl of confusion. The streets were packed with joggers, strollers and vexed tourists.
But plenty of passers-by — some with a dose of New York City bravado — said that a certain amount of commotion comes with living near the mayor’s residence.
“Antifascist protesting is probably more important than my gym routine,” said Morgan Magid, 29.
The owner of the Mansion diner, Phil Philips, who said he had served many mayors but not yet Mr. Mamdani, stood on the corner of York Avenue and East 86th Street watching the protests.
“I serve cheeseburgers,” Mr. Philips said. “I don’t do politics.”
Andy Newman contributed reporting.
Emma Goldberg is a Times reporter who writes about political subcultures and the way we live now.
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