NEW YORK, Aug 31: Hundreds of guests staying at PIA’s Roosevelt Hotel spilled into the streets on Friday afternoon as the New York City police bomb squad swarmed the hotel to investigate a reported pipe bomb in the hotel lobby.

The six-inch suspected “pipe bomb”, which turned out to be fake, was placed near a circuit-breaker box near the lobby. The police removed it and took it to a police shooting range, where they determined it wasn’t a bomb.

According to a police spokesman, a guard at the Roosevelt Hotel discovered the device in that building atop a circuit- breaker box on the mezzanine level about 12:30pm.

Investigators from the NYPD bomb squad removed the metal pipe, which was wrapped in black electrical tape and filled with nails and screws.

The police said the bomb had been found to be a hoax when they had tried to detonate it at Rodmans Neck in the Bronx.

Hotel guests were not evacuated but were kept out of the lobby and mezzanine levels. An intercom message transmitted to every floor urged guests to stay in their rooms, but many panicky tourists refused and fled through the stairwells onto Madison Ave.

The intercom just said: “‘Stay in your rooms,’ but I was remembering what people were told in the World Trade Centre so I grabbed my purse and cell phone and got out,” said one hotel guest.

To prevent anyone from monitoring police moves, the NYPD closed Madison Ave. between 44th and 46th streets to pedestrians and vehicles until the bomb squad removed the pipe about 2:45pm.

“We feel that they (the terrorists) could be watching us, and this could be a test to see how we respond,” one high-ranking police official told newspaper reporters. No arrests were made in the case.

As the Sept 11 attacks’ anniversary approaches, a number of high-profile guests, including the president of Pakistan and his entourage, are expected to stay at the hotel.

The hotel security is, therefore, reinforced by the presence of US law enforcement agencies.