The Wall Street Bombing of 1920

History 122 Research Brief; David C. Hanson, Virginia Western Community College

It was a sunny September day in Manhattan.  Nothing unusual or ominous unnerved the busy New Yorkers scurrying along the sidewalks, darting in and out of buildings, and crossing busy streets.  Then, all of a sudden time was frozen as a blinding blue-white flash lit up Wall Street.  The flash was followed by a deafening roar.  Cars were tossed like toys.  Trolley cars two blocks away were blown off their tracks.  Windows rained shards of glass.  Flying shrapnel and debris blasted into buildings in all directions and tore people apart.  Then came the lull and the tinkling of glass.  Emerging into the street, dazed people saw what looked like a war zone.  Bodies lay strewn on the pavement; people ran in panic, shrieking, crying, bleeding.  A massive yellowish mushroom cloud rose above the street, while ashen-faced men and women staggered around, dumbstruck or hysterical.  Within minutes, ambulance and fire sirens filled the financial district.  Police cordoned off the area.  Up and down Wall Street, people tended to each other, nursing wounds, offering water, or just leading shaken and bleeding survivors away.  Policemen struggled to pacify sobbing women looking for husbands, children, and friends.  By mid-afternoon, the scene had settled into a numbed stillness.  Thirty-eight people were dead or dying and hundreds were hospitalized.  Soldiers patrolled the streets.  Once an accidental explosion had been ruled out, it became frighteningly apparent that terrorists had struck the heart of American capitalism.  The date was not September 11, 2001.  It was September 16, 1920.  Five days earlier, September 11, two Italian anarchists named Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had been indicted for first-degree murder.  Their friend and fellow Galleanist Mario Buda [pictured above] allegedly parked a wagon by the House of Morgan on Wall Street; it was loaded with 100 pounds of dynamite surrounded by 500 pounds of cast-iron pieces.  A clock set for 12 noon triggered the bomb.  Weeks later, "Mike Boda," having eluded the federal Bureau of Investigation (BI) dragnet, was onboard a steamship bound for Italy.  He died 50 years later.  The case was never solved.  [See: The Red Scare]