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Bloodbath on Wall Street: 1920

"Wall Street bomb." Aftermath of the explosion that killed dozens of people in New York's financial district on September 16, 1920, when a horse wagon loaded with dynamite and iron sash weights blew up in front of the J.P. Morgan bank at 23 Wall Street. The attack, which was attributed to Italian anarchists, was never solved. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

"Wall Street bomb." Aftermath of the explosion that killed dozens of people in New York's financial district on September 16, 1920, when a horse wagon loaded with dynamite and iron sash weights blew up in front of the J.P. Morgan bank at 23 Wall Street. The attack, which was attributed to Italian anarchists, was never solved. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

 

On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5

It Gets Worse

It gets worse. If you read detailed accounts of this nasty incident, you'll learn that they found a woman's head, still wearing a hat, stuck about 30 feet up onto a wall.

+90

The view on Wall Street hasn't changed much since 1920 (except for the dead horse, destroyed car and other carnage). Below is the same perspective from April of 2010.

Dear Dave

Dave, which part of my quote is "Dumbness and nonsense."? Do you have anything other than ad hominem to offer?

[All of it. Is air safety unimportant because more people get killed in car accidents? Or AIDS inconsequential because many more people die of malaria? Back to the freshman dorm. With a side trip to Mumbai. - Dave]

Quite a blast

It shattered and bent the upper level windows of the buildings. With the wagon completely destroyed, I'm suprised the horse is as intact as it is.

[According the the various historical accounts of what happened, the horse pulling the bomb wagon was blown to bits. So this would seem to be a different animal. - Dave]

Anarchists?

Those who condemn anarchy should engage in some quantitative analysis. In the twentieth century alone, governments managed to kill – through wars, genocides, and other deadly practices – some 200,000,000 men, women, and children. How many people were killed by anarchists during this period? Governments, not anarchists, have been the deadly “bomb-throwers” of human history!

http://disinter.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/what-is-anarchy/

[Dumbness and nonsense. - Dave]

Wall Street

This is in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Washington is in front of the Federal Building. Straight back is Trinity Church. To the left of that is the NYSE. You can see the view today on Google if you go to the street view of Wall and William. It gets close but is one block away.

Photojournalist

I like the guy in the background setting up his camera on a tripod.
Newspapers paid for photos like this back then, too. But it was a lot more work with the glass plates and likely developing them yourself. And how many pictures could they shoot at a time? Probably had to make every shot count...

"Terror on Wall Street"

From one of my other favorite sites.

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=847

Thanks for the Education

I had heard about this, but I thought it occurred in from of the NYSE, not the Subtreasury. Understand that you can still see marks where the iron weights hit some of the buildings. Now, I will have be able to go down there and check it out.

Nothing Has Changed

Anarchrist are still doing the same type of thing today. No regard for innocent people and animals, just their own political view.

[The Anarchrist, huh? Spooky! - Dave]

They like to look.

What is it about human psychology that makes us all stand around to watch? Even the statues seem to be observing.

23 Wall St.

Anyone have a current picture of this area, same basic angle?

Such impatience!

All they had to do was wait 8 years - or 88 - and the financial institutions would've done the work for them.

Nice work

Nice work - I'm sure we all wanted to see a picture of a horse with its head blown off. What the hell, you couldn't have picked a different one?

[The horse's head is not blown off. We're looking at its rear end. Speaking of which ... - Dave]

Sign of Irony

What lends a certain bit of irony to this horrible scene is the sign in the background: "Albert A. Volk House Wreckers."

Thanks, Dave, for yet another impressive photo to add to our viewing enjoyment.

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