MANHATTAN'S FIRST TERROR ATTACK
It was a beautiful morning in lower Manhattan. The sky was blue and the air was a crisp 69 degrees. You couldn't ask for a much more glorious day. Then the thunder of a terrible explosion. When the smoke clears the sights are hideous. A woman's head, still wearing a hat, comes to rest on a ledge of a Wall Street building. A man tries to crawl away from the center of the calamity; his feet have been blown off. A decapitated messenger lies on the sidewalk, still clutching his smoldering package.
September 11, 2001? No, this was the first terrorist attack on lower Manhattan, and it happened on September 16, 1920. The crime has gone unsolved till this day. Here are the details.
A horse-drawn cart plodded slowly west down Wall Street. It comes to a stop near Broad Street, outside the J.P. Morgan & Co. building. The clock of Trinity Church strikes noon. The street fills with brokers and office workers heading out for a bite to eat. At 12:01 the wagon, packed with 100 pounds of TNT, surrounded by 500 pounds of sash weights, explodes in a blinding light. The metal tears into the crowd like shrapnel. Glass shatters in a half-mile radius from the explosion. When the smoke clears the crowd that had been running in terror now returns to the scene. Many have to crawl over the bodies of the dead. What they see is the hideous sight described above. Forty people have been killed and over 200 wounded.
The government response was quick. Police and firemen quickly cleared the way for ambulances to get through. Troops that had been garrisoned at Governor's Island were dispatched and quickly double-timed up Wall Street with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets. The NYPD quickly gathered as much evidence as possible. A hoof from the horse that had deposited the wagon would prove the most intriguing.
One of the more amazing aspects of this story is the forensics used in a time before DNA and electron microscopes. With the help of veterinarians and wagon-builders, the NYPD were able to pretty much reconstruct the horse and wagon that delivered the bomb. The horse was described as a dark bay mare, fifteen years old, slightly over 1,000 pounds, with a long mane and white hairs on the forehead. The harness was an old, worn heavy wagon harness, with rings of brass, one broken. The wagon was of one and one-half ton capacity, striped black and white.
The NYPD checked nearly 5,000 stables along the Atlantic seacoast to track the horse and over 500 wagon manufacturers to track the wagon. The horseshoe provided the most clues, having the mark of the Horseshoers' Union and provided evidence that it was made by someone trained abroad. The police began to target immigrant farriers. They closed in on the De Grazia brothers who owned a smithy at 205 Elizabeth Street. They had them create a shoe and a defect in their anvil created an identical mark to one found on the shoe of the dead horse. One of the brothers said that a man had appeared on the day of the explosion to have one of the hooves on his horse repaired. He said the man spoke with a Sicilian accent. There were also other witnesses who said the man had a Scottish accent, and still others described him as a "greasy, street-peddler type". There seemed to be as many descriptions as there were witnesses. One thing was certain. Just before the explosion postcards had been deposited in a mailbox on Broadway that read "Remember we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be sure death for all of you." Signed "American Anarchist Fighters".
One person of interest to the police was Edwin Fischer, a champion tennis player and New York Law School graduate. He was also a frequent patient of mental wards. Several weeks before the explosion he had predicted to a stranger he met on the Manhattan-Hudson Line (now PATH) that there would be an explosion on Wall Street, even predicting the day. Several days before the explosion he mailed letters from Toronto to friends in New York warning them to stay away from Wall Street for a while. He was questioned by police and told them he had received warnings "through the air." The police assumed he was simply a nut and released him to an asylum. He was never charged.
Several thousand suspects were interrogated, but all leads seemed to pan out. One person of particular interest was Pietro Angelo, who had been connected to an earlier bomb plot the year before. His alibi was airtight. The feds deported him back to Italy anyway, where he tossed a bomb into a crowded opera and killed 39 people.
In 1940 the NYPD gave up on the case. To this day the scars of the explosion can still be seen on the façade of 23 Wall Street.
By James J. Calautti
This story is dedicated to the memory of Joe Carlin. Joe was a homeless man I often ran into while walking my dog "Scruffy". Joe was a generous, kindhearted person, and he loved to play with my dog when we walked by. Joe died in the street, as he had lived. Joe taught me something though. No matter your station in life, you can still possess dignity.
September 11, 2001? No, this was the first terrorist attack on lower Manhattan, and it happened on September 16, 1920. The crime has gone unsolved till this day. Here are the details.
A horse-drawn cart plodded slowly west down Wall Street. It comes to a stop near Broad Street, outside the J.P. Morgan & Co. building. The clock of Trinity Church strikes noon. The street fills with brokers and office workers heading out for a bite to eat. At 12:01 the wagon, packed with 100 pounds of TNT, surrounded by 500 pounds of sash weights, explodes in a blinding light. The metal tears into the crowd like shrapnel. Glass shatters in a half-mile radius from the explosion. When the smoke clears the crowd that had been running in terror now returns to the scene. Many have to crawl over the bodies of the dead. What they see is the hideous sight described above. Forty people have been killed and over 200 wounded.
The government response was quick. Police and firemen quickly cleared the way for ambulances to get through. Troops that had been garrisoned at Governor's Island were dispatched and quickly double-timed up Wall Street with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets. The NYPD quickly gathered as much evidence as possible. A hoof from the horse that had deposited the wagon would prove the most intriguing.
One of the more amazing aspects of this story is the forensics used in a time before DNA and electron microscopes. With the help of veterinarians and wagon-builders, the NYPD were able to pretty much reconstruct the horse and wagon that delivered the bomb. The horse was described as a dark bay mare, fifteen years old, slightly over 1,000 pounds, with a long mane and white hairs on the forehead. The harness was an old, worn heavy wagon harness, with rings of brass, one broken. The wagon was of one and one-half ton capacity, striped black and white.
The NYPD checked nearly 5,000 stables along the Atlantic seacoast to track the horse and over 500 wagon manufacturers to track the wagon. The horseshoe provided the most clues, having the mark of the Horseshoers' Union and provided evidence that it was made by someone trained abroad. The police began to target immigrant farriers. They closed in on the De Grazia brothers who owned a smithy at 205 Elizabeth Street. They had them create a shoe and a defect in their anvil created an identical mark to one found on the shoe of the dead horse. One of the brothers said that a man had appeared on the day of the explosion to have one of the hooves on his horse repaired. He said the man spoke with a Sicilian accent. There were also other witnesses who said the man had a Scottish accent, and still others described him as a "greasy, street-peddler type". There seemed to be as many descriptions as there were witnesses. One thing was certain. Just before the explosion postcards had been deposited in a mailbox on Broadway that read "Remember we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be sure death for all of you." Signed "American Anarchist Fighters".
One person of interest to the police was Edwin Fischer, a champion tennis player and New York Law School graduate. He was also a frequent patient of mental wards. Several weeks before the explosion he had predicted to a stranger he met on the Manhattan-Hudson Line (now PATH) that there would be an explosion on Wall Street, even predicting the day. Several days before the explosion he mailed letters from Toronto to friends in New York warning them to stay away from Wall Street for a while. He was questioned by police and told them he had received warnings "through the air." The police assumed he was simply a nut and released him to an asylum. He was never charged.
Several thousand suspects were interrogated, but all leads seemed to pan out. One person of particular interest was Pietro Angelo, who had been connected to an earlier bomb plot the year before. His alibi was airtight. The feds deported him back to Italy anyway, where he tossed a bomb into a crowded opera and killed 39 people.
In 1940 the NYPD gave up on the case. To this day the scars of the explosion can still be seen on the façade of 23 Wall Street.
By James J. Calautti
This story is dedicated to the memory of Joe Carlin. Joe was a homeless man I often ran into while walking my dog "Scruffy". Joe was a generous, kindhearted person, and he loved to play with my dog when we walked by. Joe died in the street, as he had lived. Joe taught me something though. No matter your station in life, you can still possess dignity.
posted by James at 7:37 AM
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