Few of us are likely to forget the 2001 September 11 terrorist attacks, when two planes crashed into the Twin Towers in Manhattan and into the Pentagon. I was a 14-year-old schoolboy at the time, and I remember watching it unfolding live on television.
But how many of us have heard of what happened on September 16th? Not September 16th 2001…but September 16th, 1920.
This date commemorates one of the first big terrorist attacks in United States history, a criminal act which has since drifted off into the fog of history. In this posting, we’ll be looking at the first time that terror came to New York: The Wall Street Bombing of 1920.
What was the Wall Street Bombing?
The Wall Street Bombing was just one of several terrorist attacks which took place in the USA in the early 20th century. Until the Bath School Disaster of 1927, it was also the most deadly terrorist bombing in the United States at the time, and the first terrorist attack on New York soil.
In the early 1920s, the United States was enjoying the coming boom years of the Roaring Twenties, brought on by post-WWI prosperity. Nowhere was this prosperity more evident than on Wall Street, in Lower Manhattan, the center of the financial world. It was in this bustling nook of trade and commerce, that the attack happened, killing and injuring dozens of people during the midday rush, all in a matter of seconds.
What Happened during the Bombing?
These days, we’d probably call it an “improvised explosive device”, or to use the common parlance, a ‘car-bomb’; or more specifically, a ‘cart’ bomb. Just before noon on the morning of the 16th of September, 1920, a horse and cart, loaded with 100lbs of dynamite and 500lbs in sash-weights (those small, metal weights used to operate sash windows), pulled up outside No. 23 Wall Street, the J.P. Morgan Bank. A minute after midday the dynamite was detonated, destroying the cart, killing the horse, and sending hundreds of pounds of metal shrapnel flying through the crowded, lunchtime rush on Wall Street!
The bomb-blast could be felt right across the narrow thoroughfare. Its victims were mostly messengers, couriers, stenographers and stockbrokers, moving between their various places of work. The blast killed thirty-eight people and wounded over a hundred and forty other people! The exterior of the J.P. Morgan bank, which the cart was parked outside, was severely damaged by broken glass, chips of masonry and flying shrapnel.
Several other buildings on Wall Street were significantly damaged. Cars, trucks and other vehicles nearby were flipped over and smashed from the force of the exploding dynamite, as you can see in the photograph above. Within minutes, emergency services were on the scene to clear up the wreckage and treat the injured.
The injuries sustained in the blast were horrific. A stockbroker was decapitated by the flying debris, his headless body found in the street, a packet of work-papers and stocks still clutched in his hands. One man was blinded in the explosion and lost the use of his eyes. Dead bodies lay everywhere. Initially, the death-count was low, but the appalling injuries soon caused it to rise to the number of 38, which was the official number of deaths caused by the blast.
Some of the bodies of victims killed in the blast
The police were quick to respond to the explosion, and within minutes, they’d cordoned off the blast-area and had commandeered all operational motor-cars within the radius of the explosion, using them to transport the injured to hospital. One 17-year-old messenger-boy packed thirty people into one of these cars before driving it to safety.
The Aftermath of the Explosion
Terrified and furious New Yorkers were quick to condemn the blast that killed over three dozen people and horribly maimed and injured up to a hundred and forty or more of their friends, colleagues, family-members and just plain fellow New Yorkers. The BOI (that’s the Bureau of Investigation, the forerunner to the current FBI) immediately launched an investigation into the attack. Business-owners and the Board of Governors for the New York Stock Exchange were anxious to start trading again as soon as possible. The street was cleaned up overnight (literally) and trading resumed the next morning.
The front page of the New York Times, September 17th, 1920. The day after the bombing.
Investigators theorised that the bombers might have been communists or anarchists. Why else would they wish to attack America’s centre of wealth, business and finance? The noted newspaper, the Washington Post, declared the bombing an “act of war”.
While the BOI theorised about possible foreign terrorist groups, or the possibility of a group of Italian anarchists, the police started investigating the source of the horse and cart. Despite checking dozens of stables, they were unable to find out who had purchased, or perhaps stolen, the horse and cart which was used to transport the dynamite to Wall Street. While investigative authorities came up with many theories and leads, officially, at least – the case was never definitively solved.
Never Heard of the Wall Street Bombing?
Don’t worry! Not many people have!
Check these out if you want to find out more…
https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/wall-street-bombing-1920
https://www.britannica.com/event/Wall-Street-bombing-of-1920